The One: Heir of Achilles
by AgainstHope72
Summary: Retelling of Conspiracy of Us from Stellan's POV. Some scenes added/removed based on what he witnessed.
1. Chapter 1 - Recon

**Standard disclaimer**** \- **I don't own the characters/setting/etc. of this story, some of the dialogue is also borrowed, that's all property of Maggie Hall and Penguin Publishing. Not attempting to profit, just having fun.

A/N - My plan is to tell the series from Stellan's POV instead of Avery's. There'll be some new scenes from times when Avery wasn't there, and scenes missing if Stellan wasn't present. For scenes that are in the books I'll be copying the dialogue, you'll just be getting Stellan's thoughts on the exchanges instead of Avery's.

FYI 1 - I have the books as audiobooks, not written - so if any of my spelling/grammar/etc isn't accurate for quoted bits or names I apologize and if you let me know I'll happily fix it.

FYI 2 - Stellan's POV might be a bit more _mature _in nature than Avery's was. So far nothing to warrant an "M" rating, but that may change down the line. If I get all the way to Ends of the World it definitely will.

FYI 3 - I speak exactly 0 foreign languages, so anything that should be in another language that Stellan understands will be underlined & italicized. The language will be in [] at the end of the statement

* * *

**Chapter 1 - Recon **_(CoU 1-5)_

I stared at the laptop screen, groaning inwardly at the number of files I needed to look through. Usually this sort of remedial security monitoring would fall to some random paper pusher or sidelined bodyguard, but no, Monsieur Dauphin had insisted that I handle it personally. Everyone was so paranoid at the moment, not that I blamed them. The violet eyed baby on the way would have been stress enough, but now with Malik Emir dead at the hands of the Order the only things anyone cared about were security and The Mandate.

Everyone trying to find proof that their family had _The One_ just made it worse though. Every single family had been flying employees and family members everywhere Alexander the Great had ever been looking for evidence, and he had been pretty much everywhere.

My mind started to go numb as I sipped my espresso and scrolled through the documents. Flight plan after flight plan, passenger manifest after passenger manifest, it all started to run together. Except, wait... that was odd.

Why the hell would Jack Bishop be flying to Minnesota? Alexander the Great had definitely never been there, and the Saxons didn't have any connections in that region - no one had any connections in that region - it was Minnesota for fuck's sake. I did a quick CTRL+F of the logs, looking to see how long he'd stayed. It was probably nothing but it warranted putting in the report. But there was nothing, no return flight, no connecting flight, no other flights by the same plane from other locations.

Jack Bishop had been in Minnesota for almost a week. The Saxons had sent their Keeper to the middle of nowhere for a week, in the middle of all this Mandate shit!? That made absolutely no sense. I was going to have to tell Monsieur Dauphin - and knowing my luck they were going to send me to spy on his ass - just what I needed - a nine-hour flight to babysit my ex-best-friend in the middle of nowhere.

* * *

They didn't put me on a plane immediately, instead I had to figure out if there was any good reason for him to be there - and figure out where exactly he even was. It had taken some digging, mostly because I'd been looking for museums, or scholars, or descendants of collectors of Greek history, or literally anything other than Jack Bishop's name on a letter of transfer to a Lake Haven High School. Apparently _that_ met the bar for suspicion, and within the hour I was on the plane to Minnesota.

When I finally pulled my rental car into a parking lot in Lake Haven I checked my phone, it was 2 PM - Jack would be in the middle of Ancient Civilizations class, like he needed that - so I took my time scoping out the town. Even taking my time I had scoped out the entire town in under an hour, and found absolutely nothing of interest. There had to be some reason Jack had been enrolled as a high school junior, he looked old enough that it wasn't necessary as a cover, so I figured I'd go by the school once it was out of session and take a look around.

I could've gone during classes, but I really didn't want to run into Jack if I didn't have to. Ideally, I'd be able to figure out the reason for this bizarre trip and return to Paris without ever having to say a word to the Saxon's Keeper. He'd know I was here, of course, someone in the Saxon's household would have called him the second they noticed my flight - and with Madame Dauphin's pregnancy all the families were watching the Dauphin's planes extra closely - hoping for any hint at who they'd appoint as _The One_ when their baby girl was born. Besides, Jack being occupied with class meant that he wouldn't be wherever he'd been calling home for the past week.

* * *

There were a few hotels outside of town, but only one was a reasonable distance from the school, and given the Saxons hadn't made any suspicious real estate purchases recently I had to assume Jack was working from there. Luckily, that meant it wouldn't have the security that a normal family apartment would. A little bit of flirting with the receptionist was all it took to figure out Jack's room number, and breaking into an outdated hotel room was no problem.

I searched around the room. No laptop anywhere, he must've taken that with him to the school, so I was stuck looking at the stacks of paper on the hotel desk. Most of it was exactly what you'd expect to find on a high school junior's desk - homework, textbooks, extra school supplies. Whatever he was doing here, Jack was definitely trying to sell his cover in that regard.

Looking around I spotted a camera, a nice enough one with a long lens for zooming. Well, that must mean this was some sort of recon work? This little trip of Jack's was just getting stranger and stranger. I turned the camera on and started to click through the recent photos.

Every single photo was of the same girl. Sometimes alone, sometimes in a group, but every single photo had her in it. Well, now I knew what he was doing here - but I still had no idea why on Earth the Saxon family would be so focused on a seemingly random teenage girl in Minnesota, especially at a time like this. I eyed the pictures closely. The girl was pretty enough, wavy brown hair, dark eyes just a little bit too far apart, petite, very pale - but she wasn't doing anything interesting in any of the pictures. Mostly she was talking to friends, or just walking, nothing remotely suspicious.

I put the camera back and checked the room a little bit more, this time flipping through the notebooks on the desk. Tucked into one the notebooks was a print out of a high school schedule, just like the one I'd managed to find online of Jack's - except this one didn't say "Jack Bishop" across the top. Instead this was the schedule of "Avery West" so that must be the mystery girl from the camera. But the question still remained of why?

* * *

I spent the rest of the time until school let out in the central part of the town, sitting in some silly little frozen yogurt shop, trying to find anything I could about Avery West from my phone. I was able to find her driver's license, and found myself memorizing the information just in case, but other than that very little came up. The driver's license had been from out of state, which given she was only 16 probably meant she hadn't been here long, but either she didn't have an online presence, or she was one of the few that actually bothered with privacy settings.

Eventually I spotted a group of cheerleaders outside on the street, and realized that school must be finished for the day. So, I decided I should make my way there. I headed to cross the street, keeping a look out. If Jack was here I wanted to make sure I spotted him first, and I was also keeping an eye out for this Avery girl. If I could find her without Jack maybe I could figure out why she'd caught the Saxon's interest.

As I was crossing the street one of the cars lurched a bit, the light must've turned green, and I glanced over at the driver. When I saw her I stopped in my tracks. It was the girl from Jack's photos. There she was, right in front of me. I felt myself start to smile - this was just too easy. At first she'd seemed to be checking me out a bit, but as soon as I'd smiled she'd frozen, her face like a deer in headlights, while her hand reached out and clicked the lock button on her door. Good instincts, had to give her that.

I certainly didn't need the attention of trying to break into a moving vehicle at the moment - and if she was Jack's mission here then it was likely he wouldn't be far behind. So, I turned back to the crosswalk, and continued my walk to the high school. This was a small town, if she was that easy to find once, it's not like I'd have a hard time finding her again later.

* * *

I got to the school well after classes had ended, but before the building would get locked down. There were still cars in the parking lot, and students loitering on the grounds, a few kids even seemed to be running around a track to the side of the building. Two kids noticed me and whispered to each other, but no one approached me, so I just wandered up to a side door and let myself in.

I had never gone to a public high school, and I imagined they looked at least a little different in Paris anyway, but this place seemed to be straight out of some crappy American sitcom from the 90's. Definitely nothing special here.

I found the office records for lockers, and let myself into both Jack's and Avery's. Jack's locker had nothing more than a few textbooks, and Avery's locker looked pretty much the same as I'd expect from a teenage girl. There were a few pictures cut out from magazines, some notebooks, hair ties, textbooks, a little magnetized mirror on the inside of the door, absolutely nothing there that would explain why the Saxons were interested in her.

In fact, the only useful thing I'd found in the entire school were the posters everywhere for tonight's Junior Prom. Now that Jack knew I was in town I'd need to work fast - and given that both he and Avery were enrolled as Juniors, well, it looked like I was going to prom.

* * *

I'd texted the Dauphins to fill them in and headed to a hotel further from town than Jack's. The prom wasn't until later tonight, and I'd need to change into at least a suit to avoid sticking out too much. I'd still stick out, half a day just wandering this town had made that clear, but hopefully not enough to draw the attention of teachers or administrators or anyone who might make my job, whatever that ended up being, harder.

By the time I'd gotten to my room and pulled out a gray suit jacket from my bag I heard the ding of my phone. It would be around midnight Paris time, but the number I'd texted was always monitored, so I knew before opening it up that these would be my orders for the night.

_Bring the girl back with you, we can find out who she is then. _ [French]

Not a surprising result, but I'd really hoped for something else. The Dauphins would want me back in Paris before the baby shower, and they had to assume anyone the Saxons were using a Keeper to spy on for a week straight was at least tangentially related to The Mandate, which meant the easiest thing to do was get her to Paris and let someone there interrogate it out of her. That I was fine with, the part I didn't like was the fact I was probably going to have to kidnap her.

Worse still, I had no idea what her skill set was, no idea if she could defend herself, or how quickly her absence would be noticed, nothing. I spent the next two hours scouring the internet for more information. I'd pulled up a dummy Facebook profile and started adding Lake Haven High students. One hour in and I was pretty sure half of the junior class had added "Cindy Johnson" to their friend's list.

Eventually I found Lara Sanchez's page, and saw that one of her more recent pictures was a selfie with her and Avery West. I clicked on the tagged profile, but about half of the page was blank still. There was no way of knowing if she had privacy settings limited, or just hadn't bothered filling out her information, but I sent a friend request just in case, not optimistic about hearing back before the prom.

From what I could see she had friends from high schools all across the country, but didn't seem to interact with any of them, at least online, much at all. She might be an army brat, or it was a fake account like the one I was on, or a million other possibilities. Unfortunately, it was pretty clear I wasn't going to find anything more to go off of tonight.

Checking my phone again I realized the dance would already have started, and I should probably leave now to arrive fashionably late. I slipped on my suit jacket and tie, tossed the rest of my bag in the trunk of the black sports car I'd rented, and headed towards the school.


	2. Chapter 2 - Prom

**Chapter 2 - Prom** _(CoU 6-7)_

To think I'd thought the rest of the school was a rip off of a crappy sitcom. This was really something else. The gym smelled of dirty socks and puberty, with a heavy dose of heavily questionable body spray. The ceiling and walls were covered in paper streamers, and misshapen hunks of paper mâché were masquerading as award statues. Cheap glittery confetti that must have been put on the tables decoratively was trailing all over everything, including several chunks that seemed to have taken to floating in a bright red cliché punch bowl. The clothing was almost all cheap and ill fitting, and the hair styles were mostly ridiculous updos that I hadn't seen anyone in Paris under the age of 40 wear in years.

This was definitely a very different sort of party to the ones I was used to. I snapped a photo on my phone, planning to show Luc and Elodie later, and then slipped it back into my pocket, pulling out a cigarette and lighter instead. I found a wall to lean against where I could see most of the people milling around, and began to smoke as I scanned the crowd for Jack or Avery.

A lot of people had all of a sudden started staring at me. People had been glancing at me since I'd arrived, either because I wasn't someone they recognized or based on the ogling looks I was getting from some of the girls, just because I was hot. But now, the glances had turned into outright gawking. Damn, right, the cigarette. Smoking indoors in public high schools was probably no good, and doing so when most of the room was probably too young to do so legally was even worse. How annoying.

I stamped out the cigarette on the gym floor, hoping to lose the audience, my eyes scanning the room the whole time. And then I spotted her, my eyes locked in on the now familiar face of Avery West.

She was standing there, frozen, in a pale purple dress, and some strappy sandals, looking far more casual than the rest of the students. She'd scooped most of her dark hair up onto her head, and adhered it with what was apparently the requisite amount of hair spray for a prom look, but a few strands seemed to have escaped. There was a large red stain all down her chest, and she was holding a soaked through napkin against it, trying in vain to mop up the punch.

She held my gaze, almost transfixed, as I made my way over to her. "Avery West." I said more than asked. The look of recognition and surprise in her eyes made it very clear that that was in fact her name. She stumbled back half a step, seemingly surprised that I'd known who she was. "Lovely to see you, sweetheart."  
I grabbed the drenched napkin from her hand and dropped it unceremoniously onto the floor, slipping my hand into her newly empty grasp, I wrapped my other around her back, moving her just a few steps further onto the dance floor. "A dance?"

This girl was cute, in a wide-eyed innocent way, and seemed entirely convincing as an average American teenager. Either she had one of the best covers I had ever seen, or she really was just an ordinary girl. I had no idea why the Saxons would be interested in her if that was the case, but I felt pretty confident I could navigate her right out the door and onto a plane as long as Jack didn't show up.

Avery's cheeks began to flush a brilliant rosy red as she tucked a loose strand of hair up out of her face. The flustered look really sold the cute innocent story, almost too well. "Um. I'm sorry, I don't think I know you." Came her timid voice, just loud enough to be heard over the music.

"You don't." I smiled at her and squeezed down on her hand to keep her in place, "And even more interestingly, _ I_ do not know _you._ Why don't you go ahead and tell me who you are, and we can skip this little charade?"

The crowd started to move away from us, towards the stage at the far end of the gym where something must've been about to happen, but I kept my eyes focused closely on her.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about." Her voice trembled just a little bit, but it didn't feel like a lie. She tried to pull her hand free, but I only tightened my grip as she continued "I'm going to go."

I wasn't likely to get much out of her here, so I prepared myself to start steering her towards the exit while the rest of the crowd seemed distracted, but before I got a chance, I heard the familiar voice of Jack Bishop. "Stellan." His tone was cutting, warning.

I looked up from Avery, and there, behind her he was standing, dressed up nicely like the student he was pretending to be. "Oh good." I rolled my eyes "_You're_ here."

I loosened my grip on Avery for just a moment, but she quickly ripped her hand from my grasp and turned to look at Jack. She looked at him like he was her savior, and it honestly made me a little bit sick, I mean sure, I was trying to kidnap her, but she didn't know that yet.

Jack seemed to notice how close we'd been, and scowled at me. Oh good, he was feeling particularly protective of this girl, that wouldn't make this more of a pain in my ass or anything. She started to move towards him as he continued, "Stellan, get away from her. Avery, come here."

His tone was commanding, and that seemed to catch Avery off guard, she froze, just a few steps away from me, and took a step to the side, wrapping her arms tightly around herself in a nervous hug as she glanced back and forth between the two of us. "What's going on?" she asked, the confusion so seemingly genuine I was starting to believe her.

"So, who is she?" I asked Jack, unbuttoning my jacket for better access to my knife. "If you weren't here, I'd think I had the wrong girl. She's so…" I found myself pausing as I scanned her up and down. "Ordinary." I finished.

Avery looked down at herself, and at her cheap, stained dress, and for a second, I felt a little bit bad. I still didn't know who this girl really was and stomping on the self-esteem of a sixteen-year-old girl without a really good reason just felt… mean. "Not that you're not pretty. You are." I found myself saying, smiling at her apologetically.

My gaze turned back to Jack, and at the expression in his face I just couldn't help myself. "As I can see _you've _noticed_._ And such a little thing. I could snap her in half with one finger."

A low growl came from Jack's throat and I knew I'd hit the nail on the head. Whoever this girl was he liked her, and he _really_ wanted to protect her from me. I laughed at his reaction. "You make this too easy!"

"Excuse me, I'm right here." Avery interrupted, "And this is really…" She paused, her eyes searching, but she clearly had no idea how to finish her sentence. Instead she turned her attention fully to Jack. "Jack, let's go."

I stepped forward between the two of them, loosening my tie. Jack was being protective, and Avery seemed all too eager to have that protection, which meant this was almost certainly going to be a fight. Avery seemed to sense the danger, and began backing away cautiously.

"What do you even want with her? There's no reason for you to be here." Jack said, his voice still the same low register as his growl.

"Jack, seriously –" Avery said something to him but I couldn't hear over the screech of feedback from the microphone on stage announcing the Prom Court. I wasn't paying attention to her anyway, my full attention was on Jack.

"If it isn't obvious, _we_ want her because _you_ want her and we'd like to know why."

"Like I said, it's none of your business." He hadn't said that yet, but that wasn't my actual objection to the sentiment.

"Ah, but it _is_ our business when Alistair Saxon sends a Keeper to attend high school classes half way across the world while every other family is using their resources on more essential tasks." It was suspicious as hell, and Jack knew it, he had to. "So, the reason _I'm _here is to figure out why this girl is more important to the Saxons than The Mandate."

Avery perked up immediately at my words, her voice coming out a little louder, more confident, "Wait… did you say _mandate_?" She asked. So, she did know something then, interesting.

Jack was glaring at me, but I just rolled my eyes. "No one can hear us. Relax. And _she_ must know about it, so it doesn't matter."

The speakers blared again with the announcement of prom queen, and the audience started to react, some screaming, booing, and then laughing keeping them all happily occupied, their attention far away from the escalating drama that was brewing in the back of their gymnasium.

"So, she has information on the search?" I asked, tucking my hands into my pockets.

"The what? What's the Mandate?" Avery's voice chimed in. I ignored her, she'd reacted to the word, Jack had come all the way to Minnesota for her, there was no way she didn't know exactly what it was, and possibly something else important about it too.

"Or she's a spy? Are the Saxons using American teenagers as spies now?" I asked mockingly, hoping to get a real answer out of one of them.

"A _spy!?_ Is this a hidden camera show?" Avery mumbled, looking around as though she actually wasn't sure.

"Of course, she's not a spy." Jack bit out finally, "She's got nothing to do with The Mandate, I was sent to find her because she's related to the Saxons."

I had a very hard time believing that that wasn't a lie. He said it with such resignation it seemed like he thought it was the truth, but Jack could be a convincing liar, too. It wouldn't have made sense for the Saxons to send him away for a full week right now, not for something this inconsequential. A runaway or close family member, maybe. But I'd never seen this girl in my life, and up until a few years ago I'd spent quite a bit of time with the Saxons.

Avery sighed, seemingly relieved by Jack's words. "Okay, you _do_ have the wrong person. I don't have any family." She explained, calmly, as though that would just resolve the entire situation.

"Yes, Avery, you do." Jack had turned his head away from me now and was meeting her eyes, jaw set resolutely.

"I think I'd know…"

"In class you told me you didn't have any family. Maybe your mother doesn't, but your father did." Well, definitely a lie then. If she had a parent not in The Circle she was either a distant cousin or the product of a dirty little secret, neither of which would warrant a week of Jack's time. Not in the current climate. There was something else about her, there had to be, I just had no idea what it was. Honestly, the way he was selling this, I wasn't even sure if Jack did.

Avery sucked her lips into her mouth nervously before asking "Are you kidding?"

"No." Jack replied. With each exchange their voices seemed to get softer and more tender, and I felt weirdly invasive being there. But it was my job, and I had orders. I studied my fingernails awkwardly, hoping they'd spill just a little more information before this got inappropriate or I had to start with the kidnapping.

"Where is he? Is he here? Who are _you?_" Out of the corner of my eye I could see him holding her elbow, and her searching the room. Yeah, no, I could _not_ do this anymore.

"As fascinating as this is, I don't care." I cut them off, "My orders are to find the girl and take her, so I'm going to go ahead and do that." I reached out a hand and grabbed her arm firmly.

"What? No!" She exclaimed, trying fruitlessly to pull away.

Jack lunged immediately, and I pulled out my dagger with my free hand. Avery looked at it, absolutely stunned. "Oh my god." She murmured, stretching as far as she could away from the knife, while still being held in my grip. Nervous little thing, wasn't she?

"I had hoped it wouldn't come to this." I told Jack with a grin.

"No. You didn't." His voice came back through clenched teeth.

"You're right, so much more entertaining this way."

The speakers were cutting in again, building up a drumroll towards the Prom King announcement. Avery was staring at my knife, struck completely dumb, but Jack was moving to block my path. "I'm not letting you take her."

"Oh. You'll want to stay for the Prom King. Might have a chance this year." I mocked him, maneuvering the dagger to Avery's ribs. Jack wouldn't let any harm come to her, if I threatened her, he'd let me get her outside, away from the crowd, and confront me there.

"Quit it!" Avery was squirming, trying to move further from the knife's edge, even as I held her in place. "Let me go!"

A few of the people nearest us began to look over curiously at her slightly raised pitch, and she immediately stopped her squirming. That was odd. I was motivated to avoid a scene, at least until we were outside, a bunch of shining armored knights coming to the damsel's rescue could be a real pain in the ass to deal with, and it'd be easy to get surrounded in a room like this. Avery though, she should _want_ a commotion. If she had any brains at all she'd be screaming and wriggling and demanding someone come help her, but she was avoiding a scene. Definitely something strange about this girl, or just dumb, probably shouldn't rule that out yet.

"Hey." She pulled on my jacket, and I glanced down at her while I continued to navigate her towards the exit. I could see Jack following behind, but maintaining a safe distance, clearly, he was all for the fighting outside plan as well. "If you don't let me go, I will scream and you will get arrested."

She was trying to sound confident, and failing. I mean, she was right. The arrest wouldn't stick, of course, but I _really_ didn't need to give Madame Dauphin another reason to criticize me, and getting arrested in America for trying to kidnap a teenage girl would definitely be something she'd be critical of. Still, Avery should definitely scream, and she seemed to know that, so why wasn't she?

A few laughing guys wandered near us in the crowd, and looked curiously at us, so I found myself tucking the knife back away with a sigh. It wasn't worth it. I wasn't going to screw up and be denied a Russian posting yet again, not over this. Anya deserved better.

Avery tore herself away as soon as the knife was sheathed, and sprinted towards Jack. He protectively pulled her behind him, and they began to have a whispered conversation. I stepped forwards a bit, but saw a few chaperones meandering about the area, and backed off. I leaned against a table, pulling out my phone. I texted the plane, asking them to get ready for us, and texted the Dauphins number to confirm that I'd located the girl. I glared at the chaperones, who had begun a rather involved conversation about weather, right in between me and the pair of them, and waited.

The two of them were sitting at a table now, Avery fidgeting and leaning into him. Every so often they'd each glance over at me, but mostly it seemed like Jack was trying to answer Avery's questions, and probably not doing a particularly good job of it based on the body language. Eventually she stood abruptly up, and began walking around their table, running fingers nervously over chair back as she went. And then, she pointed at me.

The adults had finally moved away, off to address a couple that was getting a little too handsy on the dance floor, and I stalked quickly up towards Avery.

"And who is this family that they'd do that rather than_ calling_? Or emailing? Or writing a letter on fancy stationary?" Her voice was fast, and just a little bit panicked. Whoever she was, whatever Jack had just told her, she wasn't taking it particularly well.

"They run your world, sweetheart." I told her, tucking my phone back in my pocket.

They both turned to me with surprise, as though they'd forgotten about me completely, even though she had literally been pointing at me seconds ago. "Stellan. Not now." Jack warned, glancing meaningfully at the dancing students around us, having now dispersed from the stage.

"Like, they're in the_ government_?" Avery asked, clearly trying to process this new information. I could not get a read on this girl. Was she just an absolute idiot? Reckless? Playing a particularly dumb part?

"Hey!" a giggling voice interrupted us. Three girls in matching sashes swarmed up around me. They were caked in spray tan, and their cheap sequined gowns were already starting to lose sequins from the rubbing of the sashes. I so did not have time for this shit. The one in pink stepped forward, batting some fake eyelashes that were as much glue as lash, and touching my arm flirtatiously. "Do you go to Brickfield?"

Over their heads I could see Jack put a hand on Avery's back and steer her towards the door. She shook him off and said something.

"No." I told the girl.

"Ooooo" all three of them cooed. Fuck, my accent, should've covered that up, although I'd never been good at accents. "Are you like… foreign?" A clearly very dumb one in blue asked.

My eyes stayed focused above their heads on Avery and Jack. He had pulled out his phone, and was making a call. Apparently, whoever it was wasn't picking up. Given it'd be before sunrise in England still that wasn't much of a surprise, but he still seemed frustrated by it. Avery's arms were crossed, and she was twisting at her necklace. Jack said something else, and she let go of some of her tension, nodding her head and starting to walk with him towards the exit.

"Yes, exchange student. I think I see my host family. Better go." I dismissed the girls, not even bothering to look at them, before moving quickly past them towards the escaping pair.

Only a few feet away from the door Jack froze, staring dumbstruck at his phone. I heard him swear, and Avery looked at him, concerned. He was nervously fidgeting, rubbing at his tattoo, and then putting both hands in his hair, something was wrong. The two of them exchanged a few hushed words before Jack turned his head and raised his voice in my direction. "If you're going to be this difficult, she's yours. We'll collect her later."

The fuck? Something must have happened. But my phone was silent in my pocket, so it couldn't have been anything too big, someone would have told me if there was an attack, or anything like that. I mean, I wasn't going to argue with Jack handing over the girl, I really needed to not fuck this up, but he was almost home free, and he had his orders too, which I had to guess did not include giving her to me.

Avery was glaring at Jack accusatorily. "You can't just decide to let him have me! Tell me where to find my family and I'll go meet them. I have a car." Her voice was firm this time, apparently finally deciding it was a good time to start standing up for herself, idiotic of a hill as this one was.

I couldn't help myself, I laughed. "She's funny." I told Jack, before turning to her and hardening my expression. "Listen, if you are who he claims you are, you'll meet them soon enough. And everyone will be happy." I still wasn't convinced she was just some distant Saxon, it didn't add up, but there was nothing to disprove it, and it'd be easy enough to check in Paris. If by some off chance she was just another Saxon what I was saying was true. And regardless, until we'd confirmed anything else, just knowing she might be meant that there was no way I could lay a hand on the girl.

Avery barely looked at me, instead glaring daggers at Jack. But he looked at her with earnest, pleading eyes. I looked back and forth between them. Something was going on here, and not just the weird puppy dog crush Jack had on what he was claiming was forbidden fruit.

"Ok." Avery finally acquiesced, her posture drooping slightly as her eyes turned towards me.

"Finally." I muttered, leading her towards the door.

"Where are we going?" She asked, apparently for the first time realizing she had no idea what she'd just agreed to.

Before answering I lead her to my rental car, and let her in. _"Parlez-vous français, cherié?"_ I asked as I slammed the door behind her, and went to the driver's side.


	3. Chapter 3 - Kuklachka

**Chapter 3 - _Kuklachka _**_(CoU 8)_

The car ride to the airport wasn't actually a long one. But it certainly felt like it was. The second I pulled into the driver's seat she was asking me how she could possibly get into Europe without a passport, and didn't seem at all willing to accept that that wouldn't be an issue for us. I'd had less annoying conversations with Anya over the phone when she'd first learned she could ask "Why?" to every single thing I said.

Of course, when she finally dropped that particular train of conversation, she started asking me just about everything else imaginable. What was the Mandate, who were the Saxons, did I know her family, on and on she went. I made sure to answer exactly none of them, hoping she'd get the idea, but she was either very clueless or just didn't care.

Instead of listening to her, I made a few calls on the drive. First to the Dauphin number – apparently Monsieur Dauphin had woken up early and requested an update, so the man who answered had put me directly through to him.

"_Stellan_?" his voice rang through the phone.

"_Good morning, Monsieur Dauphin._" I said in my most formal voice, really hoping Avery's persistent babble wasn't making its way through the connection. I shot her a glare, but either she didn't see it in the dark, or she didn't care.

"_Do you have the girl_?"

"_Yes, her name is Avery West, I've collected her and am taking her to the plane now. We'll be there under 10 hours._"

"_And do you know, **why**, the Saxons wanted her?_" Came an incredulous voice. Monsieur Dauphin seemed angry, which wasn't exactly unusual for him, but never boded well for these conversations in my experience.

"_The Saxon Keeper, Jack, was there as well. He claims that she's a distant family member of the Saxons, that the family must have lost track of and wanted to bring back into the fold. She denies any knowledge of anything to do with the Saxons, or the Mandate, or any extended family whatsoever, so I've been unable to verify the claim._" I tried to stay calm, stay professional. Just give him the information, but not over promise. I wanted someone I could talk to about this, Elodie or someone who I could brainstorm with about who this girl could possibly be, about which parts of Jack's story were the least likely to be true.

_"I see. I find it hard to believe Alistair would spare a Keeper for this long for some distant relation. Your previous report said she's a high school student correct? Not one of those new age celebrities or anyone of value or anything interesting?_" It wasn't an unfair question, I had considered the same thing, but if she was famous then it was under some other name, and honestly, I doubted even that. Still, something about the way Monsieur Dauphin implied that she was useless because she wasn't influential rubbed me the wrong way, but it wasn't abnormal for the Circle, so I just ignored the feeling.

"_No, sir. Just an ordinary teenage girl. If you'd like when I return I'll follow up and see if we can't prove her connection._" It wasn't exactly the type of work I excelled at, so I doubted the Dauphin leader would take me up on his offer, but I had to offer anyway.

"_No. No. You'll need to be security for Madame Dauphin when you get here. We can't afford risks with her security right now._" Monsieur Dauphin insisted.

"_Of course, sir._"

"_Is there anything else?_" There was a lot more to tell, but based on how terse he was being, I was pretty sure he didn't care. Besides, anything more I could say would be speculation, about Jack, or Avery, or the Saxon family as a whole, and there was no reason to waste his time on any of that.

"_No, sir. I'll see you this afternoon._" And with that, I heard the call disconnect. I made another call, this time to the pilot, but honestly my requests for the plane were unnecessary – mostly I was just using that call to drown out Avery's incessant prattling.

* * *

I slept on the plane. I'd done the math and I knew the time zones, and we'd be getting into Paris mid-afternoon, right around the time of Madame Dauphin's informal meeting. And after that probably errands to help prep for the ball. This was the best time for me to get some sleep. Plus, Avery wasn't exactly threatening, I kept a hand on my knife in my sleep, same as always, but I knew I wouldn't be needing it.

When we'd first gotten onto the plane Avery had been so impressed with the wealth of the thing. It was odd, realizing how numb to the lavishness I'd gotten. Growing up in Russia I probably never would have imagined private jets would be a common part of my life, but now they were just… mundane. Of course, her wonder had evaporated immediately on take-off. After that she'd been stuck to her seat, clutching her arm rests as though they could save her if we fell from the sky. Oh well, not my problem. And honestly, she got onto a plane out of the country, without a passport to get back, with a strange man, who had just held a knife to her within the last hour, and she was scared of the _flying_ part?

When the plane started its long descent, I woke up. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, cracking my neck side to side. Avery was staring at me, but I wasn't sure if she was checking me out or trying to glare at me. Testing, I stood up, and lifted my arms over my head in a long, languid stretch. I felt my shirt rise up on my abs a little, and Avery turned quickly away, that quick blush response starting to rise in her cheeks, again. So yeah, that settled it, she was checking me out, and I could feel myself smirking in response. At least if she was all weak in the knees I might be able to actually get some useful information out of her now that Jack wasn't hovering.

"We're landing soon." I told her "I'm going to clean up. You might want to do the same." Looking at her again it was clear she was a mess. No way I could walk her through the Louvre looking like _that_. Her dress, which I was pretty sure had never been all that impressive, and definitely hadn't fit her right anytime in the last year, still had a large red splotch across her chest. I could see where her sandals straps had dug into her skin, leaving deep welts. Her makeup had given into gravity and time and what had once been passable eye makeup now made raccoons look restrained. Then there was her hair. Yeah, no, I could _not_ walk that through the Louvre, not when there were guests present. Madame Dauphin would kill me.

She saw me looking, and tucked her feet under her, making no motions towards following my instructions. "What's the Mandate?" She asked instead, a forced bravado in her tone. Oh great, more of the endless questions from the car ride. This would be fun.

"Nothing that concerns you." I said, opening up the overhead compartment to grab my bag.

"You said something about a search. Can you at least tell me what you're searching for?"

I reached in and grabbed the straps to my duffel bag, pulling it down as I replied. "What's everyone always searching for?" And then as I tossed it down on the seat, I leaned in just a bit and whispered the word "Treasure" conspiratorially.

She blew out an angry breath and frowned at me. Which only made me laugh. God she was a petulant little one, wasn't she? Did she think she was negotiating from a position of power or something? Or did she just hope that if she annoyed me enough, I'd answer all her questions to make it stop. I'd be more likely to find something that could be an effective ball gag first. I might not be able to _hurt_ a family member, but lightly restraining a _possible, distant_ family member seemed like there might be some gray area.

I considered it as she spoke again. "Is my, um. Is my family from England?" Yeah, a ball gag. I mean she was cute, if I could just tie her mouth shut I bet she'd actually be pretty OK company.

"The _Saxons_ are from England; _maybe_ they're your family" I replied, pulling out a folded button down from my bag.

"And you don't work for them?" Seriously, how many more questions til we hit 20?

"I represent another family of the Circle." I reached back to the overhead compartment, this time fishing out my combat boots and setting them on the ground. Was she ever going to start at least trying to get ready?

"Which is what exactly?" She asked, nervously fidgeting with her dress against the white leather of the couch.

I stopped in my tracks, hands still leaning on the edge of the overhead compartment, and looked directly into her eyes. Did she really not know even _this_ much? "The Circle of Twelve?"

She shook her head. Well, fuck. "They claim you're family, but you don't know your father, and you don't know what the Circle is?" I narrowed my eyes at her, she had to be fucking with me, right? Was this some elaborate prank by Jack. A distraction technique by the Saxons? Some truly wicked karmic retribution for the things I'd done in my life?

She fell silent, lips sealed shut. I went back to getting myself ready, at least _I_ could look presentable. I shook the creases out of my shirt, enjoying the silence, and then took off my under shirt to change. As I turned my back to her, I heard Avery's breath catch. Right, the scars. I never really _forgot_ about them, obviously. A thing that hurts you 24/7 for 7 years isn't exactly a thing you gloss over, but at this point most of the people seeing me without my shirt have either seen them before, or are much less innocent and far too focused on other, much more entertaining, tasks at the time. No one had _reacted_ to them in years.

Not wanting to deal with it I grabbed the clothes I needed and went into the bathroom. When I came back out after getting dressed she lurched, dropping a bobby pin from her hand and letting it clink against the bar sink. She was leaning over the liquor bottles, staring at the bar mirror, trying to make sense of the tangle of bobby pins and day-old hairspray that was her scalp. That would be fun. "Jumpy." I admonished. "Afraid of flying? I should've brought the big plane instead, less turbulence."

Maybe I could make her talk about something else, and she'd keep getting herself decent, and not ask any more questions or make me any more curious about how the hell she was even still alive at this point, honestly she made me question everything Fitz had taught me about Darwinism.

I went to espresso machine, fastening my tie as I went. "Coffee?" I asked, getting the machine straightened away.

"I would've taken you for a vodka in the morning kind of guy."

I didn't even bother looking up at her, just continuing to load the coffee grounds instead. "Why is that?"

"I want to say because your accent sounds Russian, and that's the stereotype…" She tapped one of those silly bobby pins against the rim of the sink as she spoke, "But really, from what I've seen so far, it's just what I would expect from you."

The wonderful smell of espresso was filling the air seconds later. "_Half_ Russian" I found myself correcting her. I handed her the first cup I filled, and started to fill the second. "The other half's Swedish, so feel free to make insulting Viking references, too. Besides, they don't have my favorite vodka on this plane." The second cup full, I lifted it to my lips and sipped on the wonderful life giving caffeine.

Avery wasn't drinking her drink, instead she was focused at the mirror again, doing her best to address the mess of bobby pins. "So, you and Jack are what, bodyguards?"

No, not the questions. Not more questions. _Anything_ but that! Maybe if I flirt a little, just a little bit, she'll drop it? "Has anyone ever told you that you look like one of those dolls?" I asked her "A… _kuklachka_. How do you say it in English? With the white skin and the big eyes?"

"A porcelain doll." She responded, clearly this was not the first time she'd heard that particular comparison, "Why does the family you work for care about me if I'm related to someone else?"

"A pretty little porcelain doll. That's you. _Kuklachka_." She wouldn't engage with my teasing; I wouldn't engage in her questioning. If it was a stalemate maybe she'd just give up.

Avery was trying to ignore it, but clearly, she was getting just a bit flustered by my words. She was getting rather aggressive with the remaining bobby pins now. Going so far as yanking out a little chunk of hair in an attempt to get a particularly troublesome one. She hissed in pain.

"Here." I offered, putting down my nearly empty espresso and moving her hands away from her scalp.

"Absolutely not!" she ducked away from my hands.

"It reflects poorly on me for you to show up looking like you've been in a bar brawl." I moved her hands away a second time, only for her to pull away from me, twisting to create distance this time. "I'm not going to hurt you." I reassured her, seriously, she'd gotten on a plane to another continent with me, but I couldn't be trusted with a few renegade hair accessories?

"Maybe if I knew what you were going to do to me, I wouldn't be so worried you'd stab me with a bobby pin." She grumbled under her breath, but this time when I moved her hands away from her head, she didn't avoid my touch. With a little bit of cajoling I managed to get the pin loose, and moved onto the next one, swiping her hands away again. A bald spot would definitely reflect poorly, no way was she pulling out any more.

"What am I going to do to you, you ask? Well, I barely know you." I teased, turning up the innuendo in my voice to ridiculous levels. I removed the last of the pins, rustling her hair around a bit to check for stragglers before I continued, "But I'm sure I could think of something. I do appreciate your enthusiasm."

Her cheeks had turned the most vibrant shade of rose. They seemed to do that a lot, and it usually coincided with her shutting up. I think I quite liked the look of that, her flushing, mouth shut. I let out a laugh, and went back to prepping myself, adjusting my earpiece as the pilot's voice spoke through the intercom, letting us know we'd be landing in Paris in 12 minutes.


	4. Chapter 4 - Toska

**Chapter 4 - Toska **_(CoU 9-10)_

The car dropped us off at the Louvre, and I hurried Avery through the gathering. The inane questions continued at first, but once we got to the more crowded areas, surrounded by faces she must have recognized she'd mostly shut up, _mostly_. The voices in my earpiece confirmed my orders to get her in a room and then meet with the security team, and Elodie confirmed that there were available rooms on the 4th floor, so I did my best to hurry her along.

Having much longer legs it wasn't terribly difficult, the poor thing was constantly three steps behind, practically jogging at times to keep up with my maneuvering through the Louvre. I dropped her off in a room, told her to rest and clean up and that I'd be back later, and then I made my way to do my actual job.

The mood in the security briefing was tense when I arrived. The older Keeper, the Dauphin's Keeper of the Watch, Gérard, was there, and he looked up at me with a somber nod. "_Have you heard?_" He asked simply in French.

"_I've been babysitting the 'Saxon' girl, so if it's anything from the last ten hours, probably not._" I answered plainly, clearly vocalizing my disbelief at her heritage in the process. Based on the look on his usually stoic face whatever he had to share was more important, but I still couldn't get the girl and her connection to the Saxon family out of my head.

"_There have been two more attacks, Hiroshi Mikado in a hotel fire last night, and Sergei Vasilyev in a plane crash this morning._" I paused, taking in the information. I knew my face displayed my shock, this was _bad_ news – the Order was increasing their frequency of attacks, from next to nothing for the past decade to 3 in under a week, they knew about the baby, there was just no other explanation.

"_So, they know about the baby girl then?_" I asked, hoping for confirmation.

"_T__hat is the working theory, yes. We're still not sure on the logic of Hiroshi's attack, but we've increased security on Lucien, and some of the first cousins just in case._" I nodded as he spoke, thinking it over. Sergei was the oldest son, the heir to the Vasilyev family, he had a younger brother, Dmitri, so they still had an heir, but that strike made sense if the goal was to eliminate 'The One'. Hiroshi though wasn't the son of the Mikado patriarch, he was a cousin, son of the head of a major corporation, but not the family.

"_Perhaps they don't realize the assumption is that The One is a direct heir?_" I mused aloud softly. But Gérard merely shrugged the thought away.

"_What the Order thinks is a secondary concern. I'll be sure to discuss it as a possibility in the meeting later, but in the meantime, we must focus on the security of Madame Dauphin and Lucien first and foremost. Given the size of tomorrow's ball, and Lucien's plans for tonight, that will not be an easy task._" I raised an eyebrow, plans for tonight? I'd definitely missed something there, but he just raised a hand to stop me, his posture clearly saying that we'd discuss it later, for the time being he'd derailed the meeting enough to catch me up, so I nodded, silently taking my place and letting the planning continue.

The security for the ball was discussed ad nauseum, but the end result was that everything was basically exactly as we'd planned but with triple the guards and a few extra security checks. The sticking point was that at Monsieur Dauphin's request we were to keep Madame Dauphin in the Louvre for the night, with an impressive guard detail of her own. Gérard intended to speak to Madame himself, as would her husband, but the expectation was that she was not going to be agreeable about being uninvited from her own party, and we should be prepared for a bit of extra aggression from her, perfect.

Afterwards Gérard held me back, and explained that I would need to accompany Luc and Elodie tonight. A new lead had been found in Istanbul, and would likely require breaking through some security and evaluating the authenticity of some rather specific art pieces. Given the mission Elodie's place on it made perfect sense, but when I asked about Luc's presence, Gérard just rolled his eyes and mentioned a club near the meeting location. Of course, even with Circle members dying left and right there were very few things that would keep Luc away from a fun night at a club, especially not if Elodie and I would be obligated to attend with him. His nerves over his mother's pregnancy and the death of Malik had already had him on edge, with these additional deaths there was no question he would not be talked out of blowing off some steam in Istanbul.

"_At Lucien's request you'll be meeting him and Elodie downtown for dinner, and taking the plane from there. Before that though, Madame Dauphin has decided this Saxon girl is your responsibility, Prada is ours for the day, and she's decided Aunt Colleen can be trusted with her own attire just this once, so Avery will be taking the final appointment. Have her there by 5:30._" I grimaced, but nodded. Watching Luc in Istanbul was an unnecessary risk, but well within the realms of what I was used to, taking Avery shopping on the other hand, while our whole world seemed to be on fire, felt almost insultingly beneath me.

At this point I'd have preferred if Jack had just taken her back to London, I'd have gotten punished, sure, but at this point I sort of doubted Madame Dauphin would ever let me have that position in Russia anyway. Every time she looked at me there was a spite in her eyes, a glee in tormenting me. Apparently rich women who got their way in _everything_ didn't do too well with rejection, I probably shouldn't have been surprised.

* * *

I pounded on Avery's door. No answer. She better not have gone exploring on her own, or run away or anything stupid like that. I pounded again, harder this time.

"Just a second." Came her familiar voice, through a yawn. Right, sleep. Best guess she hadn't gotten much on the plane ride, if any, so the hour or so I'd left her for had probably mostly been spent asleep. Hopefully she'd at least found the time to wash her face and hair. Day old makeup and rats' nests weren't exactly the look most girls went ballgown shopping in.

Avery opened the door, and I was surprised to see her standing there in a short white robe, hair in damp waves down her shoulders, eyes only half open. I found myself checking her out, I just couldn't help it. A cute girl opening the door to her bedroom in nothing but a robe- a robe that barely made it halfway to her knees, and had at some point loosened itself to expose a very deep-V of her torso- what guy _wouldn't_ check her out at least a little. "If I'd known it was shower time, I would've brought a towel."

"Can I help you?" She was frowning, hard, tightening the robe a bit around her. That bright flush had returned to her cheeks, and even just a little to the top of her chest. I found myself wondering, just for a second, just how far the blush spread.

"I suppose I'll take a raincheck on the shower. Now I'm taking you to get a gown for the ball. A welcome gift." I explained, smiling and meeting her eyes. All the cuteness aside, she had an innocence to her that told me that even if she _wasn't_ a family member, or a threat, she definitely wasn't my type or worth the trouble.

"For the what?" She seemed genuinely shocked at the idea of a ball. Probably not a normal part of the average American teenager life, I supposed.

"The ball… Tomorrow night, it's a celebration for the Dauphin's new babies."

"Babies…"

"Madame Dauphin is giving birth to twins." She'd seen Madame Dauphin on our walk through the Louvre, heard Elodie explain the baby shower gifts, this really couldn't be that much of a surprise. But the way she was blinking, stunned, made me think that she was still half asleep, so I took pity on her, and just this once, answered a few questions.

"And there's a ball… that's a baby shower? And I need a… gown."

"Madame Dauphin likes her guests to reflect well on her." I explained, patiently, finding my eyes glaring to a balled-up piece of stained purple material over her shoulder. So far only Elodie had given me any shit for bringing her through in that, but if she didn't look put together for the ball, I'd likely never hear the end of it. Especially since it'd upset Madame Dauphin, _and_ offend the Saxons.

"Shouldn't I wait here, until Jack shows up? Or the Saxons?" She asked, nervously. I groaned and reminded her that her "_family_" would get her tomorrow, and that she needed to go find something to wear from the fully stocked closet provided, and left her to get ready.

After she closed her door, I made my way to my own room, to get a few things ready for Istanbul tonight. I packed a go bag, and had it taken down to the car we'd be taking. There wasn't much, a change of jacket for the club, a few extra weapons just in case, and my standard emergency precautions. Too many people had been attacked for me not to be extra cautious with Luc by my side tonight.

_Who is she?_ I kept thinking as I packed. I should probably be focused on Lucien, but honestly, the thought of him in danger was just too uncomfortable to really dwell on. Avery was… easier to think about. Her being a family member still seemed just too far-fetched, a Keeper spending a day trip to get a distant family member was plausible, but not a week, and Jack had spent the last few years being as ruthlessly efficient as possible for the Saxons, ever since Oliver. So, if she wasn't family, then what?

A spy? For who though? A Saxon spy, potentially, but that only worked if they'd predicted we'd pick her up and keep her for ourselves. And she hadn't done anything suspicious to spy on the Dauphins, or anyone else here.

For the Order? That felt like a real possibility, and it scared me. The Order could have fed Jack false information, got him to pick her up. It'd explain why she was so eager to get back to him and the Saxons, why she was always asking about them. An Order spy sent to keep an eye on the Saxon family. Maybe even an assassin trying to get to Cole?

If that was the case, I'd need to be very careful. I couldn't accuse her without some proof, but I needed to keep her far away from Luc and Madame Dauphin – even if they weren't her primary targets, any agent of the Order would be a fool to pass up on an opportunity at them.

I growled to myself as I headed back to her room to pick her up. Maybe I could bribe the Prada attendants, get them to keep an eye out for any tattoos? I needed to know more tonight, before I left for Istanbul, with these suspicions I couldn't put anyone else at risk.

She was fascinated in the limo ride. The way her mouth would form a little O at every single building we passed. I watched her closely, trying to look for any signs that would point to me being right, to her being Order. She had slipped on a simple sundress, not exposing any new skin, still plenty of places for a tattoo to hide.

"So, Avery West," I started, deciding how best to get information from her. "I've been wondering about you. You don't know much about your extended family?"

She met my eyes. "I think we've established that." Her voice was almost terse, as if _I_ was the one who asked too many questions.

"Why were you willing to come along then?" I leaned towards her, watching for any sign of a lie.

She frowned and started to speak, but I cut her off quickly. I needed to keep her off balance, she was just going to go into the same sad story about wanting to meet some long-lost family of her long-lost daddy. "What kind of girl abandons everything for people she doesn't know?"

"If you'd stop interrupting, maybe I'd tell you." Oh, feisty, that was new.

"Please do." I leaned back, letting my legs crowd her space.

"I wanted to meet…."

No, nope, heard that one already. I cut her off quickly "Yes, yes, you wanted to meet your family. Your father was a long-lost third cousin twice removed. But that's not all of it. Really, you wanted a change." I leaned back, propping my arms behind my head.

I wasn't sure why I'd said it, but the way her mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish it appeared my instincts had been, at least a little, correct. Was this why she'd joined the Order then, maybe, needing a change? Or maybe she was someone's pawn, and just following along out of a desperate need to fit in…

"A change… A way away from '_the ache that is your existence_'" I found myself saying, almost without meaning to. Sure enough, my words were resonating though, she was leaning forwards, and I couldn't help but smile. "_Toska_." I was leaning forward too now, the words I thought far too often slipping out naturally, "It's a Russian word. It has no translation into any other language, but the closest I've hard is _the ache_. A longing. The sense that something is missing, and even if you're not sure what it is, you ache for it. Down to your bones."

She inhaled sharply, and her posture shifted, straight backed, arms folded, defensive. "I'm not longing for anything. I don't even know what you're talking about." She moved to the farthest edge of her seat, and turned to look out the window, trying to end this conversation.

I let her sit like that, thinking to myself. I was onto something here. Maybe she was an Order grunt and this was her first chance at a big job? That could be dangerous. Or maybe she'd been no one and someone had offered her a chance to be _someone_ and she was taking it. That could make sense, the obliviousness to everything Circle wouldn't even have to be an act, she'd just have needed to be desperate enough that she'd take _any_ chance to get out of whatever boring life she'd been leaving. It fit…

"It was Nabokov who coined that translation of _toska_." I found myself saying, knowing I likely couldn't push much more just yet. I'd bribe the Prada attendants as planned, and either she'd have the tattoo and that'd be that, or she wouldn't, and I'd tell Gérard my concerns so he could investigate while I was with Luc. "Nabokov is—"

She cut me off, rolling her eyes with a sigh "I know who Nabokov is. I've read _Lolita_." She was still looking out the window, and I started a bit, surprised.

"Have you?" I lifted my feet onto the seat beside her, trying to catch her eye. At least I could have a fun conversation before I probably had to kill her.

"Why not?" She nervously moved further from my feet.

"_Lolita_ is not a children's book."

"How old do you think I am?" Oh indignant, like sixteen was a full-grown mature adult. Yes, this was exactly the sort of attitude that would lead a girl to sign up to something as out of her depth as the Order. Idiot.

"I know exactly how old you are. Sixteen, seventeen next month. June fourteenth." I said, remembering the information I'd found on her when I'd still been in Lake Haven.

"How did you!?" She turned, looking at me almost nervously.

"Five foot two inches tall. One hundred and three pounds." I eyed her, enjoying how out of her depth she was, if she was Order they were clearly a bit desperate, getting a girl like this.

"How do you know- That's creepy! Why do you know that?" She was tucking her skirt around her now, clearly very uncomfortable with the direction this conversation was going.

"Could use a little more meat on those bones, if you ask me." I leaned forward, grabbing her upper arm and wrapping my fingers around it. I could hold her whole arm in my grip, even my pinky finger stopping just shy of my thumb. Not a lot of arm muscle, so if she was Order she was probably not some well trained assassin, that was good at least. Although if she got her hands on a gun, who knew.

"Do not touch me." She jerked uncomfortably out of my grasp, and I let her go without any struggle. There was no way she was armed now, she'd been searched at the Louvre, so she was no threat here, not to me. "So, part of your job is stalking? What? Did you find my driver's license records?"

Given that should be more than obvious I ignored it. "Why would an innocent thing like you read _Lolita_? Into older men?" The teasing was more fun.

"What is wrong with you!?" She pulled her feet onto the seat, tucking them under her entirely. Clearly this was torture for her, and since my money was on her being Order, torture felt more than a little justified.

"Ahhh, _daddy issues_ then." I nodded condescendingly, "Though, I suppose that should have been obvious when you immediately agreed to run off with strange and somewhat threatening men you didn't know."

Her whole face turned a vibrant shade of red, contrasting heavily with the white and navy of her dress, and her lips did that little goldfish thing again, before she finally gave up on any sort of witty response. "You're an ass!" She finally shot out, and then came her defense, "I'd read through the whole kid's section of the library by the time I was 7 so…"

I rolled down the window, letting my hand catch the breeze as we drove. A reader? That didn't quite fit with the daddy issues, runs off to join a secret murder society, girl I'd pegged her as, but maybe she'd gotten a little too used to adventure books and decided to find one of her own? "So, then you read _Lolita_?" I asked.

"So, then I read _everything_." She replied with a huff.

"Everything? Just fiction?" I wanted to ask if it was mostly erotica, or adventure, or if she had a thing for books about vigilantes, conspiracy theories, and fated coups, but I started simple.

"Everything." She turned back towards the window, eager to end the conversation. But no, she'd had her fun asking infinite questions ever since I met her, now it was my turn, if she didn't like it, too bad.

"You know Aristotle? _He who is to be a good ruler must first have been ruled_." It was a quote I'd heard several Order members give before their executions, as they'd refused questioning, their justification for why the Circle was in the wrong, that they hadn't earned their places. I watched her closely, trying to see her reaction. But she didn't react, she just continued staring out the window, ignoring me.

Oh, no, I was _not_ making this that easy for her. "So that's a no? By _everything_ you _really_ just mean twisted love stories?"

Through gritted teeth, not bothering to turn her head she finally replied. "Yes, I've read some Aristotle. And I can see that _you've_ read philosophy to give yourself an excuse for pretentious name dropping."

I almost laughed, almost. I'd mostly read Aristotle because Fitz had made me, honestly philosophy wasn't something I had a lot of time for, and my opinion on those matters wasn't exactly valued, so I didn't think about it too much if I could help it. "Works better on girls than you might think." I deflected with a wink. She grunted and leaned her forehead flat against the window, so I continued, "And I don't _only_ read philosophy. I enjoyed _Lolita_ for the lollipops."

I nudged her with my boots as I spoke, trying to get her to look at me. It was hard to read someone when all you could see was their profile. Luckily it worked, and she turned back to me, shoving my feet hard off the seat. I let them settle back on the ground. "What about history? How much do you know about Alexander the Great?" Now that I could see her face it was worth digging just a little more.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Ok, so that seemed honest, if she knew about the Circle, or the Order, she definitely didn't know its origins. "So, why the concealed weapons? What is there to be afraid of on a weekend of famous people going to balls and meetings?" She gestured loosely at where she'd seen me pull my knife from in Minnesota.

_You, kuklachka, it would seem we have **you** to be afraid of_. But I didn't say it, "Even a girl from small town Minnesota should not be that naïve." I said instead, giving away nothing.

"What's the Order?" She asked, out of fucking nowhere. Ok, so she knew we were concerned about them then? Was she trying to get information out of me? To know what we knew? Or had she been inducted without knowing and now she was trying to figure out if she was on the right side? Or maybe she wasn't Order? Saxon? Someone else? My face tightened in frustration.

"They're nothing you need to worry about, _kuklachka_. Unless, of course, you know something I don't?" I watched her face, but she gave nothing away. And before I could push more the car was pulling over, and a quick glance out the window made it clear we were at Prada now.


	5. Chapter 5 - Prada

**Chapter 5 – Prada **_(CoU 11-15)_

Avery followed in awed silence as I led her into the empty Prada, past the door guards, and up to the desk where two attendants were dutifully waiting. Avery asked nervously about the empty state of the shop, but I brushed her off, explaining Madame Dauphin's preference for shopping alone, and assumption that her guests shared that preference.

The two girls working, Aimee and Elisa, greeted us warmly and introduced themselves. I explained to them that Avery here was an American guest, and did not speak the language, so they smiled, nodded, and quickly reintroduced themselves in English. I told Avery I'd be leaving her to run errands of my own, and they led her away to a dressing room in the back.

Both of them emerged a moment later, Elisa grabbing a tape measure, and Aimee heading towards the gown section. I waved Aimee down, and she quickly approached me.

"Yes, monsieur?" She gave me her best business smile, still speaking English now that she'd made the switch.

"I have an… odd request." I admitted, feigning a flirty nervousness as I lowered my voice. "You see, an acquaintance of mine has claimed to have…well, been _intimate_… with Miss West back there. He's quite the philanderer, and a bit of a gossip, and Miss West is quite new in our circles."

Aimee's eyebrows were very high now, looking quite scandalized by the gossip. No doubt the Dauphin's guests were not at all chatty with the help on their usual visits. I rubbed the back of my neck, as though this conversation made me _very_ uncomfortable, but my moral qualms simply _forced_ me to continue.

"I'm not one to judge, of course. If it's true I fully intend to never bring it up again. But I suspect he's spreading rumors, and I would hate for her reputation to be soured before she's even gotten a chance to make a true first impression, you see…"

"Monsieur," Aimee cut me off, "Surely you don't expect me to ask…" Her voice started to trail off.

"No, no, of course not!" I interrupted, wishing I could make myself flush the way Avery always did, it would really sell this better. "He, well, he claims she has a tattoo, a circle with some lines or something…" I said, describing the Order symbol vaguely, "And, I was hoping that, since you'll be helping her change, you might… well… just let me know if you see any such tattoo?"

Aimee looked uncertain, biting at her lip nervously. And so, I turned on my most charming smile, and reached into my wallet slowly, pulling out a small wad of large bills. "I swear to you; I'll do nothing to harm the poor girl's reputation myself. You see, the man in question told a similar story about my own sister just a few years back, and, well, I just want to spare anyone else her fate…"

A swooning sort of sympathy crossed Aimee's face, as she cast me as the chivalrous brother and friend in her head. She pushed the wad of bills back my direction gently. "Rumors can be cruel. Miss West is lucky to have such a nice man looking out for her. I make no promises, but I'll keep an eye out." She said with a soft smile and batted eyelashes.

"Thank you, _cherié_. You are too kind!" And with that, I smiled, and left for my own errands. It was just _too_ easy sometimes. I'd be back within the hour, and Aimee would have my answers for me then.

* * *

I was walking, in no particular rush, back to Prada when all of a sudden, I heard _screaming_. A woman in absolute panic, and then… was that… gunfire!? I was still several blocks away, but I picked up my pace. Luc was going to meet me at Prada, unwilling to wait around at the Louvre any longer, and for a split second I was terrified that something might have happened to him. Had Avery attacked? Or someone else entirely? No, no, this could _not _be happening.

I pushed the door open, tense and ready for a fight, and my eyes quickly scanned the scene in front of me. And oh, what a scene it was.

On the ground in the middle of the entryway in a pool of blood, was a body, sans head. Behind that body was a white couch, with bloody hand prints, and a woman in gold and red. Avery, I recognized, after a split second. She was wearing what had probably once been a beautiful gold dress, now covered in blood. One of her arms was entirely red at this point, and I could still see more blood flowing from a cut in her shoulder. Luc was leaning on the arm of the couch, blood splattered across his shirt, a blood coated knife dangling in one hand, while the other held a lit cigarette to his lips.

The two attendants I'd seen earlier were hunched over, shaking in fear, just a few feet in front of Jack Bishop. Jack's arm was wrapped around the neck of what looked to be one of the security guards from the entrance, holding a gun to the man's ribs with his other hand.

Well, _fuck_.

Everyone turned to me, and I scanned over all of them again, I met Avery's eyes and saw a true, visceral fear in them, unable to bare it I turned to Jack, glaring. "What's going on?"

There was no immediate answer so I shouted in French, "_What happened!?"_ Still nothing, "What the- " And then I was shouting in Russian, not even sure if Jack remembered Russian after all this time, but just needing to shout, just needing someone to tell me how the fuck I left this girl alone for _less than an hour_ and come back to a fucking blood bath.

"The Order tried to kill Avery." Jack finally answered, his voice a quiet boiling rage that I hadn't heard in years.

"Tried to kill…." No, that made no sense, Avery _was_ Order, why would they… I looked at her, confused, and then back at the man in Jack's arms. I reached down and yanked at his collar as hard as I could. And there, on his chest, was a tattoo, the one I'd wanted Aimee to look for, the one that meant this man was, without question, _Order_.

I didn't even think, I didn't even process. My dagger was in my hand, and then it was in his heart. He was definitively Order, and he'd been here to kill, it didn't even matter that it was Avery he was after, nothing else mattered, Order assassins died, at least if I had any say at all. They'd killed my family, and now they were after Luc, other than Anya he was the closest thing to family I had left, the Order _deserved _to die_._

The man coughed up blood, going slack in Jack's hold. Jack stepped back, dropping him to the ground, and his body lay there, bleeding out. Avery tried to shout something, her voice hoarse and terrified, and at least one of the attendants was just a stream of screams at this point. I ignored all of it, turning my eyes up from the body, back at Jack.

"How the hell did this happen?" I asked, my tone laced in accusation as I withdrew my knife from the dead man. "How did the Order get in here?"

"_You_ were supposed to be watching Avery." Jack replied, glaring, he was pissed too, and he wasn't wrong. He shooed the attendants, moving them away from the still growing puddle of blood on the floor, they followed his direction, sniffling as they went, but I was focused exclusively on maintaining eye contact with Jack.

He was right, I should've been here, I should've stayed with Avery. But how could I have known the Order would attack her? Fuck, I'd thought she _was_ Order, until literally right now, this made no sense. If she wasn't Order then she wasn't anyone, and the Order wouldn't attack a nobody. So, why? Why had this happened?

"Like I knew they'd come for her!" I was almost screaming now, accusation strong in my voice. "Unless you've been lying about who she is, there is absolutely _no_ reason for this!"

Before Jack could reply one of the attendants, the one I hadn't attempted to bribe earlier, Elisa I think, began to sob something out in garbled French. "_Please, let us go… Frederic… we were wrapping the dress and he… he had a gun…_" I pointed my dagger at her, for all we knew they were Order too, one or both of them, and we needed to know.

"Don't!" Avery half-shouted. She stood up from the couch, but immediately wavered, either from shock or loss of blood. She steadied herself against the back of the couch, half-standing now. "She didn't do anything." She pleaded with me.

"Why did he try to kill you?" I asked, incredulous, glaring her down. No more bullshit about wanting to meet the Saxons, not anymore, that was _not_ going to cut it after this. This bitch was going to give me some real answers, and she was going to give them _now._

"What?" She choked on the words, looking incredulous herself. "I have no idea! Why did you kill _him?"_

I focused all my attention on her now, my fingers twitching on my dagger as I stalked towards her. Her petite frame seemed to shrink in front of me, leaving me towering, menacing. "Did you not get the _tried to kill you_ part?" I gritted out.

"He didn't! The other guy did!" Avery was trying to yell now, but her cracking voice was barely above a normal speaking tone. The girl was traumatized, but I was too mad to care. I was going to get in trouble for this, somehow. Anya was going to go years more without her brother because of this stupid girl and this stupid store and this stupid… ugh.

"And this one was Order, too." I drawled, trying to keep myself from raising my own voice. We didn't need an audience for this.

"So, why didn't you question him? Or lock him up? Or…" Avery was quaking now, her whole body and voice shaking in fear. Her eyes had stopped looking at me, instead darting between the two bodies, and the disembodied head on the ground at a feverish pace.

"You don't _reason_ with the Order." I spat.

All of a sudden Jack was between Avery and I. His hands were on my chest, pushing me softly back, the way he would've done when we were still friends. Concern was in his eyes, and a warning. His job here was to protect Avery, and if that meant hurting me, he would. And here I was, shouting at her, holding a bloody dagger, and getting angrier by the second.

"Stop. It's the Order's fault, not hers." He said, soft but firm.

I held his eyes for a few seconds, before I finally felt the tension that was lacing all my muscles recede, just a bit. I relaxed my arm, letting the dagger fall limp at my side, and turned my eyes to focus them on Avery's face. But it was enough, Jack took a half step back, still between us, but no longer touching me.

Luc stood, his knife now leaning against the leg of the couch, cigarette in one hand, the other hand running through his hair nervously. "If I may propose a theory. The Order learned we would have family members here today; in whatever way they've been learning of all our movements. They planned another strike. They may even have wanted _me._" At that he paused a second to take a long drag of his cigarette, "It seems our guest was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

He said it with such certainty, but of course he did, he _wanted_ to believe that, he _needed_ to. But I didn't, I couldn't. It. Did. Not. Add. Up.

Aimee began babbling in French between sobs. "_The men… they said they were security…from a different branch… we didn't think… it seemed fine… and then we were wrapping her dress and… and… and they… he… Frederic… he tied us up… and then we heard screams and…"_ the rest of her statement faded to tears and sobs. Luc, apparently already aware that Avery was not fluent in French was translating Aimee's words for her benefit.

And then, he stubbed out his cigarette on a magazine and shrugged. "Doesn't matter now. Get these girls out of here so we can have someone clean up this mess."

I kept my eyes on Avery, suspicious, but she was just standing there, her hands starting to shake, the adrenaline clearly running out and the real shock setting in.

"Would you call these pink or orange, _cherie?" _Luc's voice called over the rustling of dress shirts on a rack, "Pink is not my color, but I need to change for dinner. I'm starving."

There was silence, and then a soft disbelieving "What?"

"There's an adorable bistro around the corner. Or that little café…" I scowled, tuning out their conversation as I wiped the blood off my dagger on a nearby display of scarves. Jack was covering the bodies with clothing, trying to make the whole place a little less terrifying to the women present, but Luc just kept speaking to Avery, who seemed to be wavering on the verge of a breakdown.

Eventually Jack convinced Avery to head upstairs to the bathroom, to clean herself up, and led her away, bringing a change of clothing for her with them. As she wandered up the steps I had to admit, the gold dress had probably looked very fetching on her, before the blood and slashes and all of that, at least. It was a strange thought, but nothing made any sense anymore, so I wasn't about to question it.

"_You two,_" I spoke in French to Aimee and Elisa, neither had any blood on them that I could see, so it was best we just sent them home, "_Go home. You're done for the day. Someone else will clean and lock up, and the Dauphins will be paying for any damage or expenses. And don't talk to anyone about any of this, we will handle all interaction with the necessary authorities, and your involvement will be unnecessary._" They looked stunned, shocked. "_Go!_" I repeated, perhaps _too_ firmly.

They jumped a bit, and then Luc took pity on them, hurrying forward, helping them to their feet and guiding them towards the door, whispering sweet, encouraging words in their ears as they exited out the front. He was definitely better at that than I was. Instead, while he did that, and went back to looking at dress shirts, I handled what _I_ did best. I called the Dauphin phone line.

The call was easy, it felt almost routine, even if it wasn't. Requesting a clean up crew, body disposal, and interference with the local law enforcement, as well as officially reporting Order activity all had established procedure, and the security guard on the other side of the line assured me it would all be handled.

As I hung up Jack came back down the stairs. "She's a mess." He said softly. "She's doing her best to wash up and change, but the cut on her shoulder is… it's not life threatening, but she's lost a lot of blood."

Looking at him now I saw a bruise under his left eye. Not fresh enough to be from this altercation, so that must have been his punishment for letting me take Avery instead of taking her himself in Minnesota, not surprising. It'd be no surprise if I had a similar bruise by tomorrow for not being here when she was attacked, or my punishment might be even worse, since Luc had been here instead, and the family heir fighting the Order himself while his Keeper was blocks away would _not_ reflect well on me.

"There's a pharmacy across the way. I'm going to go get some first aid supplies. You'll keep an eye on her until I return?"

"Can't very well let her out of my sight after this, can I?" I nodded resolutely. Jack, lips pursed, nodded his own understanding, and headed across the street.

"I texted Elodie" Luc called, stripping his blood-stained shirt off, and pulling on a salmon one in its place. "She'll be meeting us here, since we'll probably be here for a bit." I nodded, about to reply when my phone rang. I pulled it out and looked at the caller ID. Well, fuck.

"_Madame Dauphin._" I answered, unconsciously straightening my entire body as I did so. Luc looked up, eyes wide as he met my gaze. Clearly, he had not been expecting his mother to call me either, not now.

"_Stellan, Stellan, Stellan…_" Her voice practically purred on the other side of the line. Perhaps it was meant to be flirty, but it felt much less like a beloved pet and more like a caged tiger, and I knew immediately that no good would come from this call. "_Monsieur Dauphin and I have just been given the most… bizarre… of reports. Is it true that your charge, this… Avery…"_ She spat the name with clear disdain, "_Was attacked by the Order on her little shopping spree? And that, of all people, my darling son **Lucien** was the one to intervene, despite her, again.. being __**your **__charge._"

Oh, I was _so_ fucked. "_Yes, Madame Dauphin. I'm afraid that is correct. I left her alone for a few minutes and both Lucien and I came when we heard her screaming. He beat me here, as did the Saxon Keeper, who must have been in the area, and the two of them apprehended the Order members that were assaulting her. They've been dealt with._" I did my best to keep my voice calm and collected. Luc gave me a pained expression as he buttoned up his new shirt, knowing how poorly this must be going for me by my side of the call alone.

"_I had hoped, that with all of the renewed threats of the Order, especially given my current condition, you would be taking your job more seriously, Stellan._" She warned, _"I hope you will be more attentive this evening, you had best not take your duties to Luc so lightly._"

"_Of course, Madame Dauphin. I take my responsibilities for your son very seriously. I can assure you.."_

But she cut me off. "_Yes, yes. And your __**assurances**__ mean so very much."_ The sarcasm clear in her tone, she continued. "_Now, this Saxon girl, Avery West, Hugo had assured me that she was no one, a distant family member, no cause for concern. But so far, the Order has attacked heirs and one cousin, no distant, unknown family members. And unless Alistair has lost his mind, it would be very unlike him to send one of his Keepers away for a week to track down someone so… unimportant. Don't you agree?_"

"_Yes, Madame Dauphin. I have had similar concerns…" _ I admitted, cautiously.

"_And?"_ She prompted.

"_I had- I had considered that she might be related to the Order in some way. But this attack seems to prove that whoever she is, she's not aligned with them. But I agree, the likelihood of her being what Jack said is… slim._" I didn't know what to say, what to tell her. I looked around, Luc had disappeared into the back room, and Jack hadn't returned from the pharmacy yet. I could faintly hear water running upstairs over the music, but even with no one listening I couldn't begin to think of what to say. I was fresh out of theories.

"_Now is not a good time to not have answers, Keeper._" Madame Dauphin hissed out my title as though it were a curse word, "_She is **your** job now. And you are going to figure out __**exactly **__why she matters. And you are going to have answers for me tomorrow, before the ball. No more mistakes._"

Before I could say another word, the call disconnected. The next half hour passed in a whirlwind. Jack returned and went to comfort Avery. Luc grabbed me a change of clothes for Istanbul, and collected what must have been the dress the attendants had been wrapping up for Avery from the back. Elodie arrived, making snarky comments about the mess. I informed her and Luc both that Avery would have to accompany us tonight, so that I could keep an eye on her, Madame Dauphin's orders. Elodie seemed put off by it, but she knew we were both powerless against direct orders, so she didn't make too big of a deal of it, thank God.

Avery took forever getting herself together. She'd probably never seen a man murdered before, or had anyone _really _try to kill her either. I mean, I'd held a knife to her at her prom, but it had been a _mostly _empty threat. Apparently, she'd already vomited on Luc's shoes earlier, and then more upstairs, so she wasn't handling it all that well.

Eventually Jack must have managed to calm her down, because half an hour before the plane needed to go she was standing outside the bathroom, in a cute little floral sundress, a thick bandage across her shoulder, ghostly pale, with swollen, bloodshot eyes. Jack tried to swoop in, insisting that after everything she'd be safest back at the Saxon's hotel suite. But before I could step in and put my foot down, knowing my neck was on the line, Avery came unbidden to my rescue.

"Maybe I should stay with them, meet you tomorrow." She insisted, "I already have a room at the Dauphins' and everything. It'll be easier."

Jack's glare could have killed her, and I could have kissed her. Luc quickly latched onto the idea, knowing what was at stake for me, and before I knew it, she was all in agreement to come along to Istanbul. Luc was making a phone call to the plane, I was calling a restaurant for food, and Elodie was calling someone who could deliver clothing more appropriate for an Istanbul club than a floral sundress. It was _almost_ as though this had been the plan all along, _almost_. Except, of course, for the shaking, terrified girl just standing there, unable to meet anyone's eyes but Luc's.


	6. Chapter 6 - Istanbul

**Chapter 6 – Istanbul **_(CoU 16-28)_

The flight from Paris to Istanbul was a little over three hours long. Two cars met ours at the runway, one man came out of the first one, holding a large bag of what appeared to be carry out containers, and Luc quickly made a beeline to him. The second seemed to be bursting with young women, and Elodie headed to them without so much as looking back at Avery or me.

I led Avery onto the plane, keeping a close eye on her, making sure she didn't run off before we were in the air. She nervously took a seat in the middle, and I leaned back in a couch, right across from the entrance, eyeing her silently. I'd get answers from her soon enough, I didn't have a choice.

Luc followed shortly behind us, setting his large bag down on the bar with a grin, "Dinner has arrived, _cherie!_" The man was completely unphased by everything that had happened, and everything that was about to happen, and his bubbling energy _almost_ made me relax.

A few seconds later though, Elodie strode onto the plane, and the doors were closed behind her. Her arms were full of bags and boxes and she tossed them down on one of the couches. "Champagne?" she asked Luc, abandoning the clothing to head to the bar instead.

The plane took off, and Elodie and Luc began passing a popped bottle of champagne back and forth between them as they passed the take out containers around. I joined them in the food, but decided to pass on the drinking. Today had shaken me a bit, and I needed to be on high alert to watch both Luc and Avery at the club tonight.

Avery passed on the drink as well, but she also ignored the offered food. That was odd. If I wasn't mistaken, she hadn't had anything to eat since I met her at her prom, and that was almost a full day ago now, accounting for time zones and all. But the way she was shaking and gripping her seat, I wasn't surprised. She was definitely afraid of planes, and also probably just about everything else that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

She wasn't Order, and that meant that the likelihood of her being a spy was pretty low at this point. She definitely wasn't just some second or third cousin, but she clearly wasn't anyone who would be adjusted to these aspects of a Circle lifestyle. I watched her closely, but for quite awhile she just sat there, shivering, gripping her seat.

Eventually Luc noticed, and made his way over towards her, sitting beside her and chatting happily. He asked her how she was, and talked about mundane topics – movies, America, Paris, the club we were headed too. She talked nicely enough with him, but her eyes never really seemed to focus, her shoulders never seemed to relax.

"_So, what's the deal with that one then?_" Elodie asked me in French after a bit.

"_Fuck if I know._" I finally admitted, exhaling harshly.

"_At the Louvre you said she was some distant Saxon? She was why you had to follow Jackie to America, right?"_ Elodie prompted, clearly figuring I _must_ know more than I was saying.

"_Yes, the family story is what Jack told me. But that was before the Order attacked her. And even then it didn't make a whole lot of sense…_" Elodie nodded curtly, and I continued, "_Madame Dauphin has now officially made it my job to figure out who and what she is, and why the Order would want her dead. And if I don't… well… you know how she can be with me."_

Elodie offered a sad smile, and held out the champagne bottle to me again, but I just shook my head. "_You should make sure we all have her number; in case she gets separated at the club. She's shaking like a jumpy little Bambi, I'm not sure she's going to hold it together at a proper European night club._" There was derision in her voice, which seemed just a bit unfair if Avery really was just an ordinary girl in shock, but she wasn't wrong. I nodded an approached Avery.

"Give me your phone. You need to have our numbers; in case we get separated." I explained, holding my hand out.

"My phone doesn't work… It's American... it hasn't worked since I got to Paris…" She explained softly, pulling it out of her bag and fidgeting with it in her hand.

"Did you turn on international roaming?" Elodie asked, voice dripping condescension from behind me.

"What?" Avery asked, completely confused.

"Have you never left the country before?" Elodie asked.

Avery shook her head and I held out my hand. "Here, just let me see it." She handed it over, and sure enough a single toggle was all it took. I quickly added in Elodie, Luc, and my numbers, and took note of her own, adding it to my phone and forwarding the contact along to the others. "There, you have our numbers, we have yours, and your phone will work once we land." I handed her back the phone and turned around, returning to my seat to watch her.

"How exciting for you, _cherie_! First time in Europe!" Luc was excitedly talking to her now, telling her about all of the wonderful things the Circle life had to offer, and all the culture she'd missed as a poor, landlocked American.

About an hour from the club Elodie disappeared into the plane bathroom, and in just fifteen minutes she'd returned, fully dressed for the club. She had a faux-leather mini-dress, her hair half-pinned up out of her way, and large dangling earrings that caught the light. "Your turn, Avery. Time to see if we can't make you… _presentable_." Avery just blinked at her for a minute, but eventually gave in and followed her into the bathroom.

Luc and I chatted amicably about tomorrow's ball, and how he hated that it was a masquerade, because it was so very difficult to find a mask that flattered his face shape instead of just hiding his best features. Elodie darted in and out of the bathroom a few times grabbing different things from different bags and doing her best to look so very put-upon.

Finally, when the pilot announced we'd be landing in 10 minutes, Elodie came out of the bathroom shrugging her shoulders with a heavy sigh. "_I've done the best I can with what I have. Honestly, I'm a miracle worker, and you all should bow down to my skill._" She rolled her eyes, and headed to her own seat, slipping her bare feet into her heels as she sat.

Avery came out behind her, nervously wobbling a little bit on the tall copper heels with red bottoms that Elodie had definitely forced her into. She wore the same gold necklace she'd had on since her prom, but now she was in a body tight white dress that shimmered with gold threading in the light. Her hair had that look of being half way between put together and just-got-fucked-in-a-bathroom that seemed to be very popular at clubs lately, and her makeup was tasteful but eye catching. "Beautiful!" Luc exclaimed, and he wasn't wrong. He rushed up to hug Avery and give her a kiss on each cheek, "You will love this club, _cherie_, just _love_ it!" His smile was so contagious that Avery gave him a soft smile back, before quickly darting to her seat as the plane started to dip downwards sharply.

When we got to the club Luc split off ahead to greet the bouncer, Elodie waited with Avery, and I did a quick check of the perimeter. As I approached, I heard the two girls bickering.

"You got stabbed. Who knows where that knife had been?" I heard Elodie say, looking over her perfectly manicured fingernails at where Avery was picking at her bandage.

"She's right, _kuklachka_." I agreed, sliding up between the two of them. "The Order, and their weapons, are nasty things. It's a shame for a random _innocent _to get mixed up with them."

Both girls fell silent at my words, Avery twitching slightly. Soon they were just staring at Luc, waiting for him to finish talking to the bouncer. I eyed them both and then leaned forward and whispered in Elodie's ear in French, "_You really are a miracle worker, you know. You took that sweet innocent virgin and made her look almost fuckable._" It had been meant as a compliment, if a teasing one, but Elodie's only response was to glare at Avery, almost angry that she'd done a good job. That was not like her. Clearly, she had her own concerns about our new mystery guest, possibly some theories I'd need to coax out of her before I had to have something to report tomorrow.

Before I could ask more though, Luc waved excitedly at us, and we were all ducking into the club behind him. The music was, as always, far too loud, and the lights were a mess of bright colors. Luc, predictably, headed straight to a bar, and I began making my rounds, scoping out the entrances, exits, hiding places, etc. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Avery stick with Elodie, walking out into the dance floor. Good, hopefully Elodie would keep an eye on her for a little bit while I got a lay of the land. The club had a fairly standard layout – a dance floor, some bar height tables to one side, one main bar, and a side bar on the far edge of the club. The gimmick for this particular club was that the main bar had lit waterfalls along it, with dry ice smoke and backlit dancers that gave the appearance of silhouetted go-go dancers. Nothing particularly novel, but at least it wasn't anything particularly concerning either.

I quickly found a place near the dance floor where I could get a decent look at most of the club, and set myself up there, holding a glass of water that looked like it might be vodka, and scanning the club as nonchalantly as I could. Luc was flirting with some unknown guy, and trying to con the man out of one of his stacks of glowstick necklaces. Avery was still with Elodie, at one of the tall tables off the dance floor.

Within seconds of me claiming my lookout spot, a very pretty girl came up to me and started to flirt. I'd noticed her watching me, but was a little surprised by how quickly she'd approached. Usually I'd be all for a little distraction, but with all the threats, and two charges to watch, I really just could not afford it tonight. I acknowledged her kindly, making a point of butchering my Turkish, and keeping my eyes above her head, scanning between Avery and Luc. Soon enough the girl got the idea and walked off, dejected.

At some point Avery looked over and met my eyes, and a second later she was bright red and in what seemed to be an involved conversation with Elodie. Either Elodie was doing me a favor, and getting information out of her, which would be great, or she was teasing the poor girl, and her little prophecy about scared Bambi running off would be a self-fulfilling one.

I watched a bit longer, and soon Luc had joined them. My relief at only having to watch a single location was, unfortunately, short lived, as Elodie gave her signal that she was heading on her mission, and Luc headed with her towards the exit, clearly wanting to see her off.

Avery sat at one of the bar stools, alone now, without a drink, very focused on her phone. There was a group of guys at the next table over from her, with a strangely predatory vibe to them, and they seemed to be nodding at her, pushing one of their friends in her direction. Well, fuck. Couldn't exactly have her getting raped, kidnapped, murdered, or even just disappearing for the night to some strange guy's apartment. I glanced around but Luc was still chatting with Elodie at the exit, so I'd have to intervene myself.

As I approached, she looked up, almost annoyed, and tossed her phone back into the bag she'd been carrying around since Minnesota. Over her shoulder I made posturing eye contact with the approaching man, and he put up his hands in mock surrender before turning back to his now-laughing friends. Avery seemed, unsurprisingly, completely oblivious to the exchange. "All by yourself, _little doll_?" I asked, setting down my water on the table.

"I'm surprised. Aren't you afraid something else might happen?" Given the guys behind her she probably should have been, even beyond the Circle and Order events, but I suspected she hadn't spent a lot of time at night clubs, given she was sixteen and from America where they had silly age limits for those sorts of things.

She gave me a tight smile, holding her bag just a little too tightly, "No, not worried. Luc said it was an accident."

I shrugged noncommittally my eyes scanning over the DJ and the rest of the crowd, spotting Luc, now alone, leaning over the bar to order a second drink. "I suppose it _is_ impressive how easily you got away from that Order operative. Maybe you don't have anything to worry about." I mused, watching as she picked at the bandage on her shoulder again. Maybe not _that_ easily. "And at least you understand now why I need a weapon for a weekend of meetings and parties."

Avery's eyes quickly darted to my waist, falling on the bulge that she knew, by now, was my dagger. But then her eyes trailed to my other hip, caught off guard by the second bulge she saw there. Carefully tilting my body so that only she would see, I parted my jacket open just a little bit, giving her a quick look at my holstered gun. She swallowed; eyes now very wide. Whoever she was, she was _definitely_ out of her depth if that's how she reacted to seeing a _holstered_ gun.

"Why do you need both? A gun seems pretty effective." She asked. It was an odd statement, given so far she'd mostly been interacting with knives, the one I'd pulled on her, the one the Order had sliced her with, the one Luc had beheaded him with, the first knife again when I'd stabbed the other Order man with it. In fact the only other gun she would have seen was Jack's at Prada.

"It takes more effort to kill with a dagger." I explained, re-buttoning my jacket as I glanced around to make sure no one had noticed. "You have to do it on purpose. Guns make it too easy."

"It didn't seem very hard for you to kill Frederic at Prada." She said, surprised.

I swirled the water around, not bothering to drink any, and gave her a thin smile, it hadn't been hard, there was no reason to pretend otherwise, so there was nothing to say. She crossed her arms over her chest, as though she was still mad at me for killing the man that had tried to kill her. "I still don't know why you killed him. I know you don't care about _me_ that much." She finally muttered, barely audible over the loud music.

I glanced around, finding Luc flirting at the bar, I pulled out one of the bar stools and sat in it, angling myself so I could keep an eye on him while this conversation continued. "Ah, but I _do_ care about being punished for something happening to our _guest_."

"What's Elodie doing?" Oh great, twenty questions again. Still, she'd had a rough day, maybe if I answered a few harmless questions of hers, she would answer some of mine?

"There's a wealthy business man here in Istanbul with an Ancient Greek art collection. She's _infiltrating_."

"Didn't you say she's Madame Dauphin's assistant? Is this a normal part of the job?"

"There are no female Keepers. Sometimes a task comes up that's better suited to a girl." I explained, grabbing the cocktail napkin from under my drink and fiddling with its corner. It had always bothered me that Elodie couldn't be a Keeper. She was just so _good _at this kind of work. Jack and I had had a plan once, before the Order's attacks, before Oliver, before…

Avery's voice interrupted my trip down memory lane "So guys do the important work, but you bring in girls when you need to seduce somebody. Don't you think that's a little sexist?" The way she scrunched her face up, so offended. She was so ready to come to the defense of Elodie, who I was pretty sure did _not_ like her at all.

"Sure, a little." I agreed with a half-smile.

She seemed surprised at that answer, but the righteous fury quickly figured out how to refocus on me. "But she looks hot doing it, so it's ok?"

Oh, that was just too precious, sweet little Avery trying to come to the defense of Elodie's honor and innocence, if only she knew. "I suppose she does, but that's not the point. It's true she'll have an easier time getting in than I would. But Elodie's doing this job mostly because she knows more about art and bypassing difficult security systems than anyone else in our family."

"Really?" Avery said, deflating slightly now that she saw some of her rage had been misplaced.

"Who's being sexist now?" I smirked, and she glared at me in response.

Luckily before she could find something else to be offended about, Luc swayed quickly up beside the table, clapping his hands excitedly, "On with our evening?"

Now that they'd be together again, it made the most sense for me to get some distance and keep an eye out. "I'll be patrolling" I said, getting up and letting my gaze linger on Avery for just a second, before heading back to my lookout spot.

Elodie would be gone for quite a while, and Luc would probably want to stay here until the very early morning, so this was going to be a long night for me. Luckily, it seemed like Luc and Avery were going to be sticking together for the remainder of it, which would make my job much easier. The two of them danced for a while, talking quite a bit on the dance floor. I hoped that Luc wasn't spilling any family secrets, since it still felt like Avery _could_ be a spy, but the way he was drinking that really couldn't be helped. We'd just have to keep an eye and make sure she didn't report back to anyone.

Eventually the two of them gave up on the dance floor and met up with Liam and Collette. I'd spotted them earlier and said a quick hello to each, but they'd understood when I told them I was on duty, and I'd left them to their date. After a little bit of conversation the four of them moved to a booth, and I couldn't get a good viewing angle on them while also monitoring the entrance. Guess I'd have to join them again after all.

As I headed their way, I got a text from Elodie letting me know that this was going to take a bit longer than expected, the security was more complex than we'd originally been led to believe. Well, that was just the news I needed tonight. When I reached their booth I nodded politely at Liam and Colette, who greeted me warmly. Luc, however, greeted me with a loud hiccup.

I lifted an eyebrow and looked at the half full drink in his hand. He _knew_ this night was already a lot of pressure on me, did he really have to go and get shitfaced? But he just narrowed his eyes in response to my look, and put the drink to his lips, downing the rest of it in a single sloppy gulp. "Gonna go smoke." He muttered, sliding out of the booth and taking a seat back at the bar, where he lit up a cigarette and began puffing away angrily. Oh fun, he was _that_ level of drunk now. I really hoped Elodie was wrong about how long she'd be, it was exhausting being the only adult in the room, and honestly, it wasn't really my best role.

Collette asked after him, concerned, but I dismissed it as normal stressors around Madame Dauphin's pregnancy and the mandate. Liam and Collette understood, and switched to lighter fare, but Avery got up and headed over to join Luc at the bar to chat. That seemed, suspicious. But Luc had comforted her on the plane after Prada, so maybe she was trying to return the favor? He seemed agitated, with an excessive amount of gesturing, and she just seemed very upset.

I kept an eye while I chatted with Liam and Collette, but they didn't mind. They were both Circle, they both understood the job of a Keeper. Likely they had no idea I was _also_ watching Avery, but my eyes never leaving Luc was to be expected, especially with how agitated he seemed to be. Soon though, it was Avery who was freaking out, and standing up abruptly.

"Sorry, you two, I should check on them…" I excused myself, and they nodded politely as I left. There was a crowd of people, so I lost sight of Avery for a brief second as I crossed the club, but when I got to the bar, standing next to Luc, the stool beside him was empty, and Avery was long gone. "Fuck." I muttered, eyes glancing back and forth, "Where'd she go, Luc?"

"Huh? Oh… We were just talking…" Right, useless.

"Stay. Here." I ordered, seeing him flinch at my tone, but I just didn't have time to care. My eyes caught a glint of white and gold at the far end of the bar, and hurried that direction. She practically sprinted through a staff door, and I followed behind as quickly as I could manage, peaking my head in. Was this girl _trying_ to get me killed?

The door led to a hallway full of lights and smoke. Glancing around I realized where I was, behind the bar, the little nooks on the wall in front of me were where the pseudo go-go dancers worked. Well, at least Avery should stand out here. But she wasn't anywhere, there was no one in the hallway but a woman with a clipboard and headset, some sort of manager, who was glaring at me angrily.

I moved forward down the row, looking through the steam at each of the dancers. She wouldn't… would she? But there she was, half way down the row – the dark brown waves of hair, and her hips swaying side to side in the skin tight white dress. She was actually a pretty good dancer, but _why_ was she back here dancing exactly?

"What are you doing?" I heard myself practically growl at her, reaching out a hand to grab her. Just then though the song switched and some lighting effect made it look like a pulse of lightning was firing through the smoke. I flinched backwards, and it was just enough opening for her. She lurched away from me, ducking through the falling magenta water, spraying water all around her, and stepping out, soaking wet, onto the bar. I could hear the whistles, the cat calls. A sixteen-year-old girl, soaking wet in a white dress, alone in a night club in a foreign country. Fuck, not good.

I saw her silhouette get lifted off the bar by large, muscly arms. Knowing my luck that wasn't Luc or Liam. I swore in Russian, and darted back to the door to the main club. I hurried towards her, where she sat surrounded by a lot of very handsy men who seemed all too eager to paw at her. Relief came over me in a wave as she pushed her way past them, thank God, she was sober and tiny, they were drunk and large, she'd be able to get some distance.

The relief quickly dissipated though, as she kept running, straight out the side door. I hurried after her, but by the time I opened the door and looked outside, she must have been long gone. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I'd caught just a glimpse as she'd headed out, and the white of her dress had been _completely_ transparent. She was alone, soaking wet, wearing see-through clothing that showed off her underwear, in a country where she didn't speak the language. I looked around as long as I could, but I couldn't risk losing Luc too, so after a minute I slammed the door shut and headed back in.

"What did you tell her?" I demanded, grabbing Luc hard by the shoulder, shaking him to sober him up. Liam and Collette came up and said their goodbyes before heading out. Clearly, they realized that things had gotten a bit out of their preferred depth.

"I… We were just talking about The Union… how my little sister would marry some _One_…" Luc explained, trying to shake his head to jog the memory through the fuzz of alcohol.

"Anything she shouldn't know?" I checked, really focusing on his eyes. But he just shook his head, looking stunned.

I pulled out my phone and sent a quick text to Elodie: _Avery waited til Luc got drunk and then ran away. Finish up your business as soon as you can._

"We're going outside." I grabbed Luc by the shoulder and pulled him to the back alley.

"I… I'm sorry." Luc apologized, looking completely stunned still, "We were just, talking..."

"I know, Luc. I should have been there to stop her. This is on me." I told him, my voice calming slightly, no point in alienating him with all of this.

"I'll tell my mom it was my fault. That I let her get away…" He whispered. He didn't know what had happened between Madame Dauphin and I, but he knew that his mother had gone from nice to mean to me basically overnight, and that his father had _never_ been a nice man. "They won't… You don't have to worry about…" He couldn't even say the word. And he couldn't say they wouldn't, because in the end, it wasn't up to him. When all this was over, I'd be very lucky to survive.

I pulled out my phone and dialed Avery's number. It rang, and rang, and rang. I called every half hour, leaning in that alley, smoking a cigarette with Luc, waiting for Elodie to return, and praying that Avery would answer her phone.

"_She probably just freaked out."_ Luc reassured me, "_The idea of a baby being engaged… It's… off-putting to people not in the Circle…"_ He didn't say what he really thought, that it was just off-putting in general. I knew how he felt about it, even if he couldn't actually say it aloud. I had a little sister of my own, the idea of marrying Anya off made me sick, and she was 7. To think of it happening to a baby that wasn't even _born_ yet, it was sickening. But the Circle had a way of pairing sickening with lavish luxury that made the bitter pills just a little _too_ easy to swallow.

I just nodded my head, took another deep drag of my cigarette, and called again. At 4 am Elodie met up with us again. At 5 am my call to Avery skipped the ringing and went straight to voicemail. "Fuck!" I swore.

Luc suggested that her battery had probably just died, but Elodie didn't seem to share his opinion. "_You know what you have to do…_" She whispered to me, and I nodded my head.

I asked Elodie to stay with Luc, and walked to the edge of the alley to make the call that would seal my fate. With a deep breath, I hit the speed dial. When I gave my report to the security guard manning the phone, I _heard _him swallow through the phone. "_Madame Dauphin insisted that if you called with an update, we wake her for it."_ He explained.

"_You want to wake up an eight-month pregnant woman, in the middle of the night, the morning of her baby shower, to tell her that she has to talk to me and get some bad news?"_ I asked, frustration seeping into my tone. It wasn't his fault, he had orders, same as me, and he probably wasn't about to fuck _his_ up. He paused and I finally relented, "_Fine, I'll hold._"

The details of the phone call were blurry. There was shouting, I remember a lot of shouting. And threats, and an explanation that if Avery didn't turn up by the time Alistair arrived in Paris tomorrow, she'd let the Saxon family decide my punishment, and then let _Hugo_ step in if they weren't harsh enough. I swallowed, and told her I understood, and apologized for waking her, and reassured her that Luc, Elodie and I would be on a plane back to Paris directly.

The flight back to Paris was silent. Luc passed out, still a little drunk. Elodie told me her mission had been a bust too, and then left me to stew in silence, the worry on her face just a little too strong of a reminder of my impending fate.


	7. Chapter 7 - Responsibilities

**Chapter 7 – Responsiblities **_(CoU 29-30)_

When we landed in Paris, I realized that I hadn't slept at all on the plane. It was clearly morning now, and I wouldn't be off duty again until tomorrow, assuming by some miracle I avoided termination until then. The ball was tonight, and Monsieur Dauphin was taking security very seriously, if tonight had gone well I might have been expected to get a break for a few hours midday, enough time for a power nap, but with how they had _actually_ gone, if there was any downtime at all it'd be spent facing my punishment.

It was a silent drive back to the Louvre. Luc tried to apologize a few more times, and to assure me that it was no big deal, Avery would turn up and all would be forgiven. I waved off his perpetual optimism, and focused on my phone. I'd sent Anya's nanny a text when we'd landed, letting her know that I needed to speak with her tonight, but I hadn't heard back yet. There were plans in place, if something happened to me while I was on duty Luc would have taken care of Anya until she hit 18, but if I was terminated, well, things got messier then.

Elodie met my eyes, and seemed to see through me immediately. She leaned in; her voice low enough that Luc wouldn't hear. "_You know I'll handle it. I'll keep my promise if-_" She didn't finish her statement; she didn't have to. I gave her a sad smile, and nodded.

Years ago, when I'd first joined the Circle it had seemed like every week I was one fuck-up away from termination. I'd been so far behind the others, so far out of my depth, and the Dauphin family wasn't known for their patience with _the help_. A year in I'd taken Jack and Elodie aside, and told them about my sister, about where she was and how to contact her, and _begged_ them to help her, should the worst occur. They'd both agreed, without hesitation. I couldn't count on Jack anymore, not after everything that had happened, but Elodie wanted me to know I could still rely on her. Anya wouldn't be alone in the world. "_Thank you._" I whispered back finally, feeling her manicured nails give my leg a tight, reassuring squeeze.

When we arrived to the Louvre, we got word that Madame and Monsieur Dauphin were busy with preparations. Madame was to be kept busy all day, at Monsieur's insistence, so Elodie hurried off to get changed and washed up to return to her primary assistant duties. Luc, still groggy from the club, headed off to his own room to try to rest up before the ball, with Madame skipping the event he'd be expected to play a larger role as host, and that was best done not-hungover.

I stopped by my room and quickly rinsed off and changed out of my wrinkled suit from the night before. I'd have to meet up with Gérard and get my orders for the day sooner rather than later, but showing up looking already a mess wouldn't help my case any. The man was a stickler for how we, as employees, reflected on the family, and showing up a wreck would have meant that any punishment Monsieur Dauphin had ordered would have been a bit _extra_ harsh.

I got to Gérard's office and knocked on the doorframe. He looked up, scowling.

"_You're in a lot of trouble, Stellan._" He started.

"_I know. I spoke with Madame Dauphin on the phone early this morning._" I nodded, not quite meeting his eyes. The Dauphin's wouldn't terminate me until either Avery had been found, or the Saxons were here to _assist_ in the process, but they could do plenty of damage in advance of that, and likely would want to, to show the Saxons that my mistakes were not taken lightly, and that _they_ had had nothing to do with the loss of a family member, no matter how distant.

"_You can relax, for now._" I heard him say, "_The ball tonight is too public, too important, and too dangerous. You're to be left unharmed until then, so that you can perform your duties properly. Monsieur Dauphin will find you after the festivities to handle the rest._" I gulped. Monsieur Dauphin was not a nice man, he was _never_ a nice man, but he was a _cruel_ drunk.

"_Of course, Gérard. Any changes in the plans for today?_" Maybe, just maybe, if I did my job _really_ well between now and the end of the ball, I'd be spared the worst of it, maybe I'd at least be allowed to live.

Before he could answer both our phones dinged loudly. That was _not_ a good sign. I blinked at the text message, not really processing its words. My brain simply _refused _to believe what I was seeing.

_Order attack. Liam Blackstone and Collette LeGrande's limo was attacked near the Charles de Gaulle airport. Liam died on impact. Collette is on her way to the hospital now._

I had just seen them, last night. They'd been there, in Istanbul, hours ago, happily flirting and teasing like they always did. Gérard swore and I looked up to see him shaking his head.

"_Tell Monsieur Lucien, if he wants to visit Collette, you'll need to accompany him __**everywhere**__, we can take no risks with his safety. I'll speak to Madame and Monsieur."_ With that, he was leaving the room, and I was left, still trying to process the news.

* * *

I called the hospital on my way to Luc's room. The Circle contact working there was quick to make note of Collette's incoming presence and assured me that she would be given the proper treatment and privacy that one of her station deserved. I was to be texted an update on her status the moment she'd been triaged, the moment she'd be able to see _important_ visitors, and for any other changes in her prognosis. Gérard would be handling the investigation of the crash site and the Order attack, and would be heading up any coordination with the Frederick's family, since Liam had been one of theirs.

Luc answered his door groggily, still dressed from last night, having only removed his blazer before collapsing into his bed. "_The ball isn't for hours, cherie. Tell my mother whatever it is she can wait while I rest. I cannot be seen with these bags under my eyes in public."_ He gestured loosely towards his face, before his eyes landed on mine. "_Merde. What happened?"_ He was eyeing me, suddenly wide awake, clearly expecting that I'd already been punished, or had just gotten notice of impending termination.

"_Liam and Collette…"_ I started, "_Luc, I'm so sorry. The Order attacked their limo. Collette is headed to the hospital now, but Liam- _"

Luc's eyes filled with tears. He shook his head, trying to deny it, trying to not believe what I'd said, even as his body reacted to it. "_But last night. They were there with us in Istanbul. They were fine, Stellan, they were great. Magnifique!"_ He looked at me, his eyes desperately searching for some sort of lie, some sign that this was all a sick, perverse joke at his expense in retribution for last night. They didn't find any comfort there. And so instead, he lurched forward, pulling me into a tight hug, and I felt the warm wet spot begin to spread across my shirt where he'd rested his head. I held him to me, rubbing his back as he processed the news.

When he finally pulled back, I let him know that Collette had arrived at the hospital, but they were still triaging her injuries. "_She won't be able to have visitors for a while. You should wash up, then I can take you there."_

He nodded, and wandered aimlessly around the room for a minute, hand rubbing through his hair. Finally, he reached out towards his phone, and started looking through his messages. It was as though he hadn't heard me, but I didn't push. I walked in the room, closing the door behind me to give him privacy, and waited. Whatever he needed now; I'd be here for him.

"_That's odd…"_ he muttered, lifting the phone to his ear to listen to a voice mail. A moment later a bit of relief seemed to wash over his face as his eyes found me, still standing just inside his door.

"_It's Avery._" He explained after he'd set the phone back down. "_She says she's terribly sorry about running off in Istanbul. Jack picked her up apparently. She's back here now, looking forward to tonight's festivities."_

I felt my jaw go slack. Seriously? After all of that she'd just run off with Jack – she could have gone with him after Prada, but instead she came to Istanbul, just to run away with him once she was there? That made no sense, no sense at all. And how could he do that to me? I knew we weren't friends anymore, but he could have at least told me _he_ had her, he had to know the target it'd put on my back, losing track of a family member under my care. He had to have seen all the calls from me she'd ignored, he must have. A hardness set in my stomach as I was reminded, yet again, just how dead that friendship was. Clearly, on his end at least, there was nothing left of it. He didn't care how his actions impacted me; he didn't care if he got me killed.

"_Oh!"_ Luc's voice broke me out of my thoughts, clearly remembering something. "_I have her dress, from Prada! I should deliver that for her, and let her know about Lettie. She met them both last night, she should know, it's only right."_ He hurried over, not bothering to straighten up at all, and found a garment bag that had been dropped off along with his other luggage from our Istanbul excursion. He unzipped it, as though to double check that he had the right garment bag, and I saw a shimmer of silver before he zipped it back up and nodded his head.

We agreed to meet back at his room in half an hour to head to the hospital. It'd give Collette time to be taken care of, and give Luc time to fill Avery in and clean himself up. Personally, I took the time to inform Gérard of Avery's presence, and that she'd returned with Jack. He seemed at least a little relieved by the revelation, although he was far too busy with coordinating the ball security and the investigation into the attack to pay it too much mind. He did send a quick message to the Dauphin's so that they would be aware, but otherwise shooed me off to either prepare for the ball or escort Luc.

The hospital visit was brief, Collette was hooked up to too many machines, and on too many pain killers to do more than squeeze Luc's hand and wipe at her own tears. It was hard to see such a beautiful, lively woman strapped down to a hospital bed, covered in bruises, scrapes, and stitches. She didn't seem real like that, it just wasn't her, and I hated every second of it. Luc left, promising to visit again as soon as he could, and making arrangements with the hospital to handle the paparazzi vultures that would no doubt be circling this place for the rest of her time here.

* * *

After that hospital visit something about being at a fully decorated Eiffel tower ball just felt _wrong_. Going from stabbing a man in Prada to partying in Istanbul last night hadn't felt all that strange to me, but I was starting to see how odd it must've seemed to Avery. I hadn't cared about the Order men, killing them had been a positive to me, so going to a club afterwards had seemed so reasonable. But Collette, she wasn't nothing, she wasn't no one. Collette was a Dauphin, she was a part of Luc's family, and one of the good ones at that. And she was laying in a hospital bed, while the rest of us drank champagne and danced around in tuxedos and ball gowns and stupid uncomfortable masks.

The tower was beautifully decorated, as always. There was a small orchestra playing music, and food and drinks being dispersed all around a massive dance floor where guests were mostly loitering for the time being. The dancing would start in earnest soon enough, but for now this party was starting like all Circle parties that included multiple families, everyone was posturing, greeting, planning.

I kept my eyes on the entrance, relieved when I finally saw Luc. He still looked tired, in a way he rarely did at these sorts of events, but he was standing straight, and I knew he'd be alright. He was strong, and he'd had to do this before. As he turned from the entrance, I got a good look at the woman on his arm. Madame Dauphin always insisted Luc bring a date to these things, not wanting too many rumors about his preferences for male companionship to spread among the Circle. It wasn't a well-kept secret, of course, but everyone seemed satisfied as long as he took various cousins from different families to any larger events. It was almost the Dauphin's way of reassuring the Circle that, no matter his _personal_ preferences, their heir would do his duty when the time came.

My breath caught in my chest, just a little, as I saw _her_. The glint of silver I'd seen in Luc's room had in fact been Avery's dress, and it was breathtaking. The silver material glittered under the decorative lighting, making it look as though she was wearing a piece of a stormy night sky. Between the dress and the delicate silver mask she wore Avery looked like a work of art. And when Luc led her to a group and her back turned to me, I was caught off guard by the deep V of pale skin exposed by the swaying fabric.

She'd been cute at her prom, and in those little sundresses she'd worn to and from Prada, she'd been pretty in the skin tight outfit Elodie had gotten her into for Istanbul, but _here_ like _this_. It was like this was how she was _supposed_ to look. Those dresses had been costumes, and this was _her_, and she was _gorgeous_. I shook my head slightly to myself, trying to regain my focus. I had a job to do, and while admiring a beautiful woman was something I was usually happy to make time for, this particular woman seemed determined to get me terminated and there were very real threats I needed to be watching for tonight.

I lifted the silly gold mask off my face, letting it settle in my hair, relieved to regain my peripheral vision as I scanned the crowd. My phone buzzed in my back pocket, and I pulled it out, making my way to an unobtrusive corner of the party to answer it. I _shouldn't_ answer it, of course, I was on duty. But the caller ID showed it was Anya's nanny, and I needed to speak to her before Monsieur Dauphin got to me after the party.

I filled her in on the barest of details in Russian. Something had gone wrong at my job, and I might be unable to reach out for quite some time. Should the worst happen a woman named Elodie might reach out, and she was to be trusted, implicitly, with Anya's care. I'd given this speech before, so Sophia mostly dismissed me, reassuring me that she knew the procedures, and Anya would be perfectly safe and well cared for. "_She knows it's you on the phone. She's begging me to let her speak to you."_ Sophia's voice was soft, questioning. She'd tell Anya no if I asked, but I could tell that she thought I should.

I glanced around for a split second, but the party was still just getting started, and nothing suspicious caught my eye. Now that Avery had been returned my odds of surviving to see tomorrow were much better, but I couldn't take it for granted. If this was my last chance to speak to Anya, I had to take it. "_Yes, fine. Just tell her I may have to hang up."_ I leaned back into the wall of windows behind me, and felt myself smile as I heard the excited voice of my little sister crackling through the phone.

She regaled me with stories about school, and the weather, and about a new toy that Sophia had gotten her. I interjected occasionally, telling her how proud I was of her, and how great it was to hear from her, but mostly my input was unnecessary. Sophia had told me this was normal at Anya's age, she wasn't quite able to comprehend that I had a life _outside_ of being her older brother, so she wouldn't even think to ask about it most days, only about when I might be able to visit or call next. It was a relief, really, and I still wasn't sure I'd be able to bare it when she got older and started asking questions that I _really_ didn't want to answer.

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a large black maternity dress, and instantly my heart sank. _Madame Dauphin_. I whispered to Anya that I loved her but had to go, and quickly hung up the phone, tucking it into my jacket. "Madame." I said simply, carefully eyeing her approach.

And then, just at the edge of my peripheral in the other direction I saw a glint of silver tuck itself behind a pillar. Avery? Was Avery spying on _me_ now? Without even questioning why, I found myself speaking to Madame in English, as though I wanted Avery to know _exactly_ how much trouble she'd gotten me into and exactly how much trouble _she_ was in.

"I thought you weren't coming tonight."

"_Hugo_ and the security staff decided I wasn't coming. You know that _I_ prefer to do things my own way." Everything about her posture and dress tonight was severe. And the way she was eyeing me could only be described as predatory. "So? What have you found? I was expecting a report on her earlier in the day."

Right, maybe English was a bad decision, if Avery _was_ a spy she shouldn't know about the Dauphin's suspicions. I found my gaze searching the center of the room for any excuse to remove myself from this conversation. "I've found nothing of concern." I answered, resolutely. It was true, I'd found nothing _at all_, to be honest.

"You and I both know there's _something_ going on." Madame Dauphin hissed at me, taking a step closer, I stepped back unconsciously, and flinched internally when I'd realized what I'd done. "The Order only attacks people who _matter_. And then you let her run off, after I told you specifically to keep an eye on her. Lucky for you she came back today with that _Saxon_ Keeper."

This time my flinch was not exclusively internal. The tone of her voice was cruel, vindictive. As though the fact that security had tried to keep her home tonight had pissed her off and she was just _looking_ for a target, and here I was, already in trouble with her husband, already on her bad side, an easy scapegoat to torture. "I told you I'd report any findings immediately." I reassured her, hoping professionalism might get me through this in one piece.

"I hope so, you know what it means if you keep anything from me."

I bowed my head "Yes, Madame, I am quite aware."

"In fact." Her voice lowered conspiratorially, and her eyes started to scan the room, never straying behind me though, to where I suspected Avery was hiding, "I wonder if we shouldn't capture the girl, to be sure. We can hold her until we're able to investigate more thoroughly."

I didn't even think about it; I found my eyes darting behind me to where I'd seen the glint of silver. She should _not_ be hearing this. I didn't see her there, but there was a pillar in the way, and I couldn't be sure without letting Madame Dauphin know she might be there as well. "She belongs to another family; I don't think that would be looked upon kindly." I found myself arguing. I just wanted this girl out of my life and into the Saxon's hands, let her be Jack's problem already, I was sick of putting my life on the line for _her_.

But Madame Dauphin waved off my objections dismissively. "The Saxons have hardly acknowledged her existence. I want you to take her, and hold her, just for now. Make sure there's nothing inappropriate going on."

I wanted to argue, to point out that Jack shadowing her every move wasn't exactly nothing. That we'd need an excuse to hold her any longer than tonight. That there were more important things to investigate, and she was probably just a distraction. That I didn't want to have to kidnap her _again_. But before I could so much as speak a single word an important guest arrived, and Madame Dauphin's whole posture and tone shifted as she greeted them.

After that I went back to my patrolling of the ball, desperately trying to think of a way I could get answers out of Avery tonight, preferably _without _having to take her prisoner and start a family war.


	8. Chapter 8 - The Ball

**Chapter 8 – The Ball **_(CoU 30-32)_

A little later in the night, when everyone was properly lubricated with champagne, the orchestra began playing one of their more popular dancing songs. Couples all around began to foxtrot, and clap, and swap partners in a frenzied race across the dance floor. I watched, disinterested in the familiar patterns, until I saw a swirl of silver as Avery twirled into my view on the arm of some Mikado cousin. I heard the telltale clap, and saw her try to extricate herself from the dance, only to end up in the arms of some younger family member that I didn't recognize instead. I smiled at the panic on her face, and found my way to the edges of the dance floor slipping the gold mask back over my eyes, sensing my opportunity fast approaching.

Soon she was near enough my position when the clap occurred, and I quickly cut in, taking her hand in mine, and holding her to me just a little too tightly so she couldn't worm herself away. "Looking lovely as usual, _kuklachka_." I whispered in her ear. I felt her tense, and her eyes snapped up to see me in shock, but she just kept dancing. I didn't know if she knew the steps, or just knew enough about dancing to follow my lead, but either way she kept up as we navigated the dance floor with the rest of the party. "How are you enjoying the ball?"

Without realizing I'd been moving my hand I felt the soft warmth of her skin coasting under my fingers as they found a more comfortable resting spot on her exposed back. "It's beautiful." She admitted; her words terse but genuine. If I had to guess, she'd heard Madame Dauphin's request earlier, and now she was at least a little concerned that I was here to kidnap her, same as I had been the last time I'd danced with her, back in Minnesota.

"One more question." I leaned in until my face was almost brushing her ear, "What did you hear earlier?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." A lie.

"Who are you?"

"What do you mean?" Oh right, _that_ wasn't getting annoying.

I kept one arm on her back, but my other hand moved to her chin, pulling her face up slightly to look at me with a single finger. "I'm going to find out, one way or another. You may as well tell me now." She'd heard Madame Dauphin, I knew it, she _knew_ my orders. If she just told me, here and now, I wouldn't _have_ to take her. She could enjoy the rest of her night and go off to be reunited with her supposed family at the end of all of this, off to London to hopefully never return to Paris, or my life, again.

"I'm not—" She started, but froze a bit as I stroked my finger across the underside of her jawline. "Nothing. I'm no one. I'm not anything. Stop it." Her jaw was clenched, and she was desperately trying to turn her head to create some distance between us.

OK, so she wasn't going to make this easy. Why couldn't she just make this easy? Without thinking I'd lowered my hand from her face and tucked it into my jacket, pulling out my dagger and letting her feel it lightly between us. "I asked you, who are you?"

"What are you doing? Is pulling a knife on me your answer to everything?" She practically hissed at me, her body squirming a bit to keep the knife away from her.

I gripped her tighter with my other arm, and knowing the next clap for partner swapping was imminent I quickly navigated us away from the main group of dancers. The clap to switch partners rang around us, but I held on to her tightly. "_Who are you_, _kuklachka?"_ I asked her in French.

"What?" She was glancing around frantically now, looking for someone to save her, probably. We were quickly getting more distance from the crowds and soon I'd have her off in a corner, just the two of us. Anyone watching would think we were just a couple of kids, excited from all the drinking and dancing, off to make out in some less populated corner of the party.

I repeated the question again, first in Spanish, then Chinese, then Russian. "Or do you need it in another language?" I growled finally, letting her create just enough distance between our bodies that she could clearly see my dagger where it pressed against her gown.

She tried to expand on the distance, but my arm was tight around her, and I had a hold on the fabric of her dress, I was _not_ going to let her get away again. "I don't know what you're talking about." She insisted, for what really must have been the millionth time by now.

"If you won't tell me, I'll guess. I guess that you're a spy." I wasn't sure that _was_ my guess, but I was out of ideas at this point. She wasn't Order, but she could still be Saxon, or some other family, or maybe something else entirely. I had nothing to go on, and she wasn't exactly giving me anything more.

"What? No!" She seemed so shocked at the accusation, and even more shocked as she felt the blade of my dagger slide it's way upwards, resting on the exposed skin of her chest.

"At first, I thought you were a spy for the Order, or even one of their assassins, coming after Luc, but Prada proved me wrong. So, a spy for the Saxons?"

"No!" Her voice was so firm, so shocked by the accusation that I found myself believing her, it wouldn't be enough for Madame Dauphin, but at least if she wasn't a spy that meant she probably wasn't _that _dangerous. "I'm just a … relative." See, _that_, she hadn't said with the same conviction. _That_ was a lie, or at least part of one.

I pushed the dagger a little harder, making sure she could really feel it against her, that she knew _exactly_ how dangerous I was to her, and spoke again. "You realize someone sent a _professional_ to kill you?"

She knew I didn't believe her; she knew I was onto her. Her skin was flushed, her breathing feverish, "That was just—" she started the familiar lie but I cut her off.

I spun the two of us to an abrupt stop, out of the main eye-line of most of the party, not loosening my grip for a second. "I know Prada wasn't a mistake, and so do you. And then you run out of the club like an insane person after taking advantage of Luc's inebriation to get him to tell you who knows what."

She hardened at that. "I did _not_ take advantage of Luc!" She snapped at me. And again, I found myself believing her, and felt a little bit relieved. People taking advantage of Luc's good nature always upset me a little too much, he was too easy to trust and I cared too much for him to bear it when it got him hurt, no matter how quickly he bounced back.

The accusation though, the assault on her character seemed to be deeply offensive to her, and all of a sudden, she was growing just a bit of a spine. "What would the Circle do if they knew you were threatening a member of another family? Let go of me. Now." She was glaring at me, and her fingernails were now noticeable pinpricks on my shoulders through my jacket.

I held her gaze, trying to get a read on her. But this time, unlike at her prom, she was too sure of herself to push around any further. If I did anything more she would cause a scene, and the Dauphin's would have to claim I was acting alone, and leave me to the punishment of the other families, and the punishment for attacking anyone in a Circle family would be _harsh_, they'd probably paint me as an Order sympathizer and kill me on the spot. I released her, put my dagger away, and took a half step back.

She quickly peeled away, and sure enough behind her Jack was hurrying over to the pair of us, her protector here to save her once again. The song had ended and the tired dancers were starting to disperse back to their drinks, food, and conversation, so I let myself join the spreading crowd. I'd have to track her down again, but trying anything while she was with Jack would be exceedingly foolish.

As I headed off towards a standing area with tall cocktail tables though, I heard Avery's voice call out, "Wait!" I turned my head, and she and Jack were headed my direction. Oh _great_, she'd tattled and now he was going to try to intervene on her behalf with whatever the Saxon's latest lie was. I leaned against one of the cocktail tables, waiting for them to join me there.

"Changed your mind about telling me the truth?" I asked Avery directly when they reached me. "Or have you two come to show me a slide show of the must-see tourist attractions of Istanbul?"

Avery stiffened at my comment, but blustered forward as though she was entirely nonplussed. "If you'd given me time to explain before, I would have told you I had a panic attack at the club. I needed some air, but I got lost, and Jack was in Istanbul, so he picked me up."

Oh sure, that made _so _much sense – people having panic attacks usually jumped into erotic dance waterfalls, and put on little shows. How dumb did she think I was, honestly?

"Istanbul is what we need to talk to you about." Jack cut in before I could respond, he knew her story wasn't believable, but he seemed to have something else entirely on his mind. "It's Fitz. I was on my way to see him when I caught up with Avery, so I brought her with me. But he wasn't there – it looks like the Order's taken him."

I raised my eyebrows, suspicious. It didn't make sense for the Order to kidnap a tutor, and it made even _less_ sense for Jack to tell _me_ about it. Fitz mostly worked for the Saxons, if he was missing, they would head up the search, and sure, he'd been my teacher and the one who had brought me into the Circle in the first place, but I'd never had the close mentorship with him that Jack had, not really.

"He left pictures of the thr- of you and me, saying that we needed to help him. Do you know why he might have said that?" Jack continued, stumbling a bit over his words. Fitz had meant a lot to Jack, he'd always been a father figure for him, so if this was true then it was no surprise that he wasn't handling anything particularly well at the moment.

"Of course not." I tossed the mask off my head and onto the table, suddenly finding it very uncomfortable. "Are you seriously telling me _Fitz_ has been kidnapped? Why in the world would the Order take a _tutor_?"

"We're not sure. We were hoping you might have some insight." It was Avery talking now, and I found my gaze darting between her and Jack. Fitz wasn't anything to her, why was she here for this conversation. Sure, Jack had taken her a long in Istanbul, fine, but this felt like some sort of distraction. Jack knew enough to know when to cut family members out of serious Keeper business. Did Fitz have something to do with whoever she _really _was?

"Well, I don't." I answered, simply, eyeing them suspiciously as my mind processed potential reasons for Avery's involvement, hoping, once again, that I might get _something_ I could give to the Dauphin's to get them off my back about her. "What does _she _have to do with this?"

"I don't have anything to—" Avery started, but then she stopped abruptly. The hourly night show had begun, and the sparkling lights all around us must be more than a bit overwhelming from her perspective.

"What are you telling me?" I said, looking at Jack now, since Avery was so distracted.

"We have some things to show—" He reached into his jacket, but as he did so I spotted Monsieur Dauphin approaching over his shoulder, approaching _aggressively_.

Avery must've adjusted to the light show in time to see me stiffen, because she quickly reached over, stopping Jack from pulling out what looked like a book.

"You and the security staff were supposed to keep her home tonight!" Monsieur's voice barked as he approached. He seemed oblivious to the audience, not a good sign towards his temperament, or his sobriety. "And now she's off doing God knows what."

"Yes, Monsieur Dauphin. Madame was not meant to come tonight, but—"

"But she does as she wants." He hit the table with his fist, hard. Avery jumped, eyeing Monsieur with a well-earned fear, before she took Jack by the arm and started to back away.

Her movement, however, caught Monsieur Dauphin's eye, and he turned, glaring aggressively at her. "_This, this is that Saxon girl?"_ he asked me in French, nodding towards her now frozen form.

I nodded confirmation, as Avery came to her senses and pulled on Jack's arm again, trying to move him away from Monsieur Dauphin's temper. But before they could get far at all Jack froze, and Avery dropped his arm. Alistair Saxon and his twin children were walking over, and Avery seemed completely caught off guard by their approach.

The five of them gathered around the next table over, while Monsieur Dauphin held me in conversation at our current spot. I kept my eyes on the Saxon group, which didn't seem to upset him, as it _was_ a part of my assigned duties for the night.

Monsieur Dauphin had lowered his voice, knowing that the Saxon family spoke French fluently, and was now telling me rather explicitly the sort of punishment that was in store for me for my failures after everyone went home for the night, and that if I didn't do as his wife had requested earlier tonight they would only be harsher. He demanded to know what was so special about Avery, and he expected me to go above and beyond to make up for my failure to keep Madame Dauphin at the Louvre for the evening, as though I had any say in _that_.

While he berated me, I watched as Jack made the introductions between Avery and the Saxon family. The interactions seemed polite, but cordial. Lydia was outwardly friendly, as was her way, but Cole and Alistair were reserved in their greetings. This was _not_ a reunion, that much was clear, this was definitely an introduction. But looking at her next to the others, especially Lydia, there was no mistaking the resemblance. Whatever _else_ she might be, Avery West _was_ a Saxon. She was also looking _very_ overwhelmed.

Alistair Saxon approached, and Hugo cut off mid-threat. "It's been a long night, Hugo. I know our guest has been staying with you, but I think we'll take her to our hotel, as we haven't had a chance to talk."

I watched Avery closely, and her eyes seemed to twinkle with _hope_? Right, she knew I was meant to kidnap her tonight, if she left with the Saxons she'd be out of my grasp. "Nonsense." Monsieur Dauphin cut in, "It's nearly midnight, isn't most of your family staying with us anyway? Sort it out in the morning. Speaking of – have you seen my wife? The headstrong –"

"Yes, fine. Lovely." Alistair agreed, glancing at Avery and Jack before giving a bored shrug.

Avery's hand came up to her chest, to where the necklace she usually wore would have been, but the smaller necklace she wore tonight was higher up, against her collarbone, and so her hand just hovered there, fluttering over a tiny pink pinprick that my dagger had left behind. "I'm ready to go now."

Her voice was quiet, but Jack had been watching her closely as well. "I'll take you."

"No. Somebody else is probably going back anyway." She argued, shaking her head softly, hand still hovering nervously just above the neckline of her dress.

"I am." I offered, stepping forward. I met a side eyed glance from Monsieur Dauphin, but he nodded subtly. I had, of course, been meant to stay until well after the last guests had gone home for the evening, but I also had orders to keep an eye on Avery and lock her up for the night. So, it seemed I had predicted correctly when I'd assumed my orders regarding Avery were the more important of the two.

Avery seemed caught off guard by my offer, but she followed me, silently, as we headed to the elevators rode them down and then exited out onto the streets of Paris, to where the long row of black cars awaited us. Her eyes didn't focus on finding a car though, instead she gazed up at the night sky, her eyes starting to swim, as her face shown with a clear pain. _Toska_, the word hovered at the edges of my mind.

Every last piece of her, standing there in a beautiful silver gown, in front of the Eiffel tower, staring up into a starry night sky, _screamed_ out to the universe with a sense of longing. It was beautiful, and it was heartbreaking, and more than anything I found myself needing to know her, needing to know the story that led to this unimaginable girl. "What is your story, _kuklachka_?" I whispered into the wind; not even sure she'd hear me. In a way it was like speaking to a work of art, I didn't expect an answer, and I didn't get one.

She turned to me, her eyes blinking, and I could see the tears start to well. I found myself leading her into one of our cars in silence, and I didn't say another word the whole drive to the Louvre. I didn't speak as we navigated through the security, or the hallways. She held herself tall, and though every time I looked her direction her eyes were damp, I never saw a single tear fall. In fact, I realized with a bit of shock, in this whole whirlwind of international travel, drama, and murder, I hadn't seen her cry at all. But now, here, after a _ball_, it must have all finally caught up to her.

Finally, as we reached her room, I stopped outside the door. "So, you tell me you're no one. Then almost get killed at a boutique, run away from a club in Istanbul, and now you're crying in a ball gown. You're sure there's nothing you want to tell me?" My voice was soft, gentle, I didn't want to scare her, she knew my orders, but even as I asked the question, I wasn't entirely sure if I was asking for the Dauphins, or if maybe I was just asking to satisfy my own curiosity.

"There's nothing to tell. You really don't believe me?" Avery turned to me; her voice raspy as she spoke.

I unlocked the door for her with a master key, and replied with a slight shrug. "I learned long ago that I'm the only person I can trust. So no, I don't believe you. I just can't figure out what you're trying to cover up."

As soon as I opened the door, she pushed past me into the room. "And I can't figure out why you're so temperamental. You were threatening to kill me a couple hours ago, and now you're pretending to be friendly."

I came into the room behind her, watching closely. "If I was actually threatening to kill you, you'd be dead…"

The answer didn't sooth her, "I'm going to sleep. Please leave." She didn't even turn to look at me as she went into the attached bathroom.

But I couldn't leave, not now. I followed her, making sure she could see my reflection behind her in the mirror. I leaned against the door frame of the bathroom, and waited silently for a second as she turned on the faucet to start washing her hands.

"You know, spies are usually good liars. So are pretty girls." She was hiding something, and I just wanted to coax it out of her. She was a Saxon, sure, but there was _more_ to it. She'd said she was driven here by wanting to know her family, but immediately after meeting the most important people in that family she'd wanted to leave, looking hurt and dejected. Disappointed perhaps?

Avery threw the soap down into the dish angrily, ricocheting it into the sink. She whirled to face me, anger joining the sorrow in her eyes. "Really!?" There was water cascading down her forearms, and she ripped one of the decorative towels off its hook to dry them as she glared at me. "Sometimes I can't tell if you're trying to interrogate me, or kill me, or sleep with me!"

As soon as the words left her mouth, a bit of the anger ebbed as she realized what she'd said. Her lips clamped themselves shut, and the now familiar shade of pink started to rise on every inch of her face and chest, making a beautiful contrast with the dark silver of her gown.

I found myself smirking. "To be honest, I can't quite decide either." _Sleep with her_, right now, seeing her all angry and worked up and _raw_, wanting to sleep with her was _definitely_ winning.

"Get out!" She practically shouted at me. Apparently not a fan of the flirtatious teasing then. Not the time for it, I supposed.

"You know, if you were a spy, I'd be impressed." I leaned on the door frame, blocking her exit completely, and found myself doubling down on the poor-taste flirting, hoping if I got her just a little more on edge, she'd let something slip. "Nothing hotter than a talented girl. I mean, I'd have to kill you, but before I did—"

"Go. Away." Her voice was wavering, and the anger was losing its steam to the sadness she was still wrestling with. She tossed the towel back onto the sink counter, and lifted her hands to wipe the backs of them against her eyes. There was no more pretense, she was crying now. "Seriously, go away." It came out soft, a desperate plea to let her crumble in peace, alone.

"What is it that's upsetting you so much? Prada?" She had been through an incredible amount in a very short time. And from the time I spent with her alone I knew she couldn't possibly have eaten or slept enough in the last two days. Had it really only been two days? Even to me it felt so much longer.

"It's nothing. I'm fine. I just want you to leave so I can sleep." She insisted, not meeting my eyes. She moved forward, trying to leave the bathroom and head towards the bed, but I reached out a hand. I reached across her body, placing my palm on her far hip, and held her there.

"You're rubbing your eyes a lot for someone who's fine." I mentioned, doing my best to keep my voice light and nonjudgmental.

"I'm fine." She pushed past me into the bedroom, and I let her go, my palm sliding across her stomach, and falling back to my side. "My contacts itch, that's all." As soon as she spoke, she froze for a half second, maintaining a decent distance from me, but facing away from where I was leaning.

"You wear contact lenses?" I tried not to let suspicion creep into my tone, but I couldn't hold it entirely at bay. The way she'd been looking into Luc's eyes after Prada, the physical similarities between her and Lydia, the way that she was crying after a supposedly _distant_ family member practically blew her off, after all her excitement to know _anything_ about her father or his family. No, it couldn't be…

"I have really bad vision." She glared back at me, her eyes daring me to question her further.

I pursed my lips. I had to be wrong. There was no way…. There was a knock at the still slightly ajar door, and I turned to see Elodie's head peeking in.

"_Stellan, I just got a call from Madame Dauphin. She and Monsieur Dauphin are heading back from the ball now. They have guards coming up to keep this one locked up, and want you to be there to greet them when they arrive for a – __**conversation**__."_ The way she emphasized the last word left no question that this would be my punishment. Although, if I told them what I suspected, if I was right… yes, maybe this night wouldn't go so badly for me after all.

I let out a put-upon sigh, mostly for Elodie's benefit, and turned to Avery. "It appears I'm needed. Sleep well, little doll. There will be guards outside to make sure nothing _happens_ to you overnight." And with that I left, following Elodie to wait for the Dauphins.


	9. Chapter 9 - Violet Eyed Girls

**Chapter 9 – Violet Eyed Girls **_(CoU 33-36)_

Elodie waited with me just inside the side entrance. We watched the street in silence, waiting for the Dauphin's cars to arrive. The wait dragged on, but Elodie didn't seem eager to say anything, she'd let me talk if I needed to, but she knew enough not to push the issue. I'd been punished before, and since we had Avery trapped in that room on the fourth floor the chances of me being terminated were slim, so there was nothing to say.

A flash of lightning arched across the sky in the distance, and a short breath later thunder roared around us. Sometime in the time since I'd returned to the Louvre the sky had well and truly opened up. There was a torrential downpour, and I found the pattering of the rain oddly soothing when paired with my racing thoughts. Avery wore contact lenses. She wore contact lenses, and she looked painfully similar to Alistair Saxon's _only_ daughter. The girl who had seemed to _ache_ for a father, who had been all but dismissed by Alistair Saxon only to exit moments later in tears.

Violet eyes. It would explain _everything_. Why the Saxons had sent Jack to get her, why the Order had attacked her at Prada, why she'd run away terrified in Istanbul after Luc had told her about how his baby sister, the _violet eyed girl_ would be engaged before she was even born. A part of me didn't _want _to believe it, but I did. I just didn't know what this would mean. Would the Dauphin's want her dead, to stop Avery from taking the spot of their own violet eyed daughter? If they killed her would it start a war with the Saxons? They surely must know about her eyes, at the very least Jack had to, and if he was anything like the Jack I remembered, that meant Alistair knew as well. Maybe they'd make an arrangement between the two families? Double the odds of a _successful_ union? Avery would marry Luc, and the baby would be engaged to Cole Saxon when she came of age? I winced at the idea, Cole had always been an _unpleasant_ boy, I really didn't like the idea of him engaged to Luc's younger sister.

"_They should be here by now…_" Elodie hissed, nervously. I hadn't realized how much time had passed, with me lost in my thoughts. But looking down at my phone, she was right. We'd been standing here for an hour; they should absolutely be home by now.

We began to fidget, still waiting, with no idea what else to do. I kept my phone out, in my hand, trying to decide if it was worth risking their ire by calling them to check up on them. Neither of the Dauphin's would appreciate the implication that I was being impatient in waiting on them, but I could just as easily get in trouble if something _had_ gone wrong and I hadn't immediately noticed and reacted to an uncharacteristic absence.

Right as I was about to give up and call, my phone rang, _Gérard_. Everything after that happened so fast. It was a whirlwind of activity. I was back at the hospital where I'd brought Luc to check on Collette earlier in the day. He was there too, along with Elodie. There'd been another attack. Madame Dauphin had been attacked when she'd gotten into a car, the driver hadn't been ours, he'd been Order. He'd fled the scene, and we hadn't found him yet. He'd stabbed her, right in the stomach.

* * *

She was unconscious now – something the doctors had given her – and Monsieur Dauphin was pacing around her bedside, shouting at every hospital staff member he could get his hands on, trying to find answers. There were two heart monitors in the room, each beeping predictably. But only two.

Luc was crying in a chair at his mother's side, holding her arm at its full extension so that doctors and nurses could swarm around her and do their jobs. Elodie waited in the hallway, but I tucked myself into a corner of the hospital room, watching everything. Monsieur was shouting again. The doctors had told them that one of the babies had been lost, but they couldn't tell him _which _baby, and no one seemed to understand just how _important_ that was.

They were trying to save his wife's life, they explained, they were trying to keep the remaining baby stable, they told him, an ultrasound to see if the remaining baby was his son or daughter just wasn't a priority. The staff thought it was the ramblings of a man overcome with grief, that it was a silly little fixation, and did their best to soothe away his concerns instead of addressing them head on. Some of the staff knew, some of the staff were Circle, but even _they_ knew they had to prioritize the life of Madame Dauphin and the baby – because it _might_ be the violet eyed girl, and if they lost her because they were trying to determine if it was her or her brother, well, there'd be hell to pay.

The sun was just starting to rise when a doctor told us that Madame Dauphin and her baby were stable, that a procedure would be necessary to remove the deceased fetus, and that Madame Dauphin would likely be hospitalized the remainder of her pregnancy. At that point Monsieur Dauphin looked ready to strangle the man as he demanded an ultrasound, and a Circle member quickly ushered a technician into the room from where they'd been waiting in the hallway for the go-ahead.

The Order had killed the girl. There was crying, and shouting, and before the doctors even left, I felt Monsieur Dauphin's fingers close around my throat, and lift me against the wall.

"No!" Luc shouted, standing up, his face tear stained, at his mother's side.

"_You should have been there! You fucking, useless, idiot! You should have been with her instead of chasing that stupid unimportant girl! You don't even know who she is! She's no one! My __**daughter**__, my daughter, __**she **__was someone, __**was**_… _now.. thanks to your good for nothing—"_ The rage was coming off of him in waves, and I could feel my head getting lighter. I waved a hand, trying to communicate without words that I had information, that I needed to speak.

Luc was pulling at his father's fingers, and Monsieur Dauphin put me down just long enough to backhand his own son across the face. Luc stumbled back, falling to the ground, and then Elodie was in the room, hurrying over to Luc's side, making sure he was alright. "_Wait._" I managed to choke out, holding my hands out in surrender. "_I know who she is! I was going to tell you when you returned but.._"

The room froze, a stunned silence fell over everyone until all I could hear was Monsieur's heavy breathing and the regular cadence of the beeping medical equipment. "_Well…_" he ground out, as I rubbed my hands against my throat, trying to get my breath back go speak.

"_She's Alistair Saxon's daughter, I'm sure of it._" I started, and I could see the anger swell again in Monsieur Dauphin's eyes, no one cared about a plain old bastard daughter, there were plenty where she came from in every family, "_And tonight, I found out she wears contacts, I think- I think she has violet eyes._"

My own eyes were looking at the floor, avoiding everyone, but I could feel the tension in the room shift. I didn't know what I'd just doomed Avery to, but there were no longer hands around my throat, and Luc wouldn't have to take more than that single hit for me, not tonight.

Gérard called the Saxon family, telling them some story about how Avery had run away in the middle of the night, and no one knew why. Spies watched the Saxon hotel and soon the family had sent everyone out, searching the whole of Paris for a single missing girl. If they didn't know she was violet eyed, that at least confirmed that they knew she was Alistair's daughter.

Monsieur Dauphin hurried us all back into a limo and towards to the Louvre. Now that he knew his wife was no longer carrying a violet eyed girl, he barely seemed to care what security was left to protect her. His focus was entirely on Avery. On the drive he announced, in no uncertain terms, that if I was right Avery and Luc would be married that afternoon. Since there was no Madame Dauphin to assist at the moment, Elodie would handle the planning. And if I was wrong? Well, then I'd be terminated for failing the family by leaving them with _zero_ violet eyed girls to marry off.

* * *

A dozen guards escorted Luc, Monsieur Dauphin, and I to Avery's bedroom door. He nodded his head towards it and I stepped forwards, pulling out the master key and turning it quickly in the lock. I heard movement inside, but didn't let myself worry as I pushed the door in. It stuck, just a few inches in it caught on something, she must have realized I knew and blocked the way.

Monsieur Dauphin pushed me aside and kicked on the door, hard, until I heard wood shattering on the other side. Whatever _had_ been holding the door was no more. I saw Monsieur Dauphin push into the room, and then nod his head again, a dozen guards swarmed in behind him, weapons trained where he'd nodded. I stepped into the room, ducking around Monsieur Dauphin, and Luc followed a few steps behind me.

The guards' weapons weren't trained on Avery as I'd expected, they were all pointed at Jack. Jack, still dressed in his tuxedo, with his jacket draped over his arm, had one foot out the window, his hands held above his head. Several of the guards reached out and pulled him back in.

To the side Avery stood, absolutely stunned. She was just standing at the edge of her bed, wearing a tiny set of lavender silk pajamas, and the same gold necklace she'd worn before. Her hair was a mess, and I could see her lips were swollen, and looking back at Jack she wasn't alone in that particular condition. Jack had spent the night with a family member? That was _not_ the Jack I remembered at all.

One of the men quickly pulled Jack's hands behind his back and put him in handcuffs, another pressing a gun hard into his side.

"This isn't what it looks like!" Avery insisted, panic causing her words to catch in her throat. "He was helping me- um—"

"I couldn't care less what he was doing with you." Monsieur Dauphin's voice cut through the room with a deadly cold. "He won't live long enough to do it again."

"No!" Avery lunged towards Jack, but one of the other guards grabbed her roughly mid-lunge, yanking her to her feet and turning her to face Monsieur Dauphin. She couldn't understand, this was all so new to her, Jack had fucked up, and he had known better, this wasn't on her, but she must have really cared about him, so she'd never understand that.

"What I care about, is what you've been hiding from us." Monsieur Dauphin announced, crossing the room purposefully towards where the guard was holding Avery. Luc stepped up next to me, his whole body shaking slightly as he met Avery's eyes across the room.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Avery was thrashing from side to side in the guard's grip now, trying in vain to get free, clearly terrified for her life, and for Jack's.

"Don't touch her!" Jack snarled, but he was silenced quickly when the blade of a knife rested itself against his throat.

Monsieur Dauphin ignored all the thrashing, he grabbed Avery's face in his hand, his hand was so large against her delicate features that everything about this moment felt incredibly wrong. Avery's eyes were squeezed tightly shut, I could see her head try to twist and turn away, but she couldn't overpower him. The guard holding her took his finger and thumb and pulled at the skin around one of her eyes, forcing it open.

"Stop!" Avery's voice came out halfway between a yell and a whimper, and I felt an overwhelming urge to turn my head away. But, I felt a wave of guilt that I had done this to her, that _I_ had doomed her to this fate, and so I steeled myself and forced myself to watch.

Monsieur Dauphin reached out a clumsy finger, swiping at her eye, and it came away with a speck of brown on its tip. He stepped back, Avery blinked, and the whole room gasped.

There, still struggling in the arms of a guard, Avery stood, in her pale little PJs, blinking defiantly with one brown eye, and the other a brilliant shade of violet.

"It's true…" Luc breathed, shock clear in his voice, "Why didn't you tell me?" I felt myself tense, wanting to ask the same question, and also finding myself wondering if, termination or not, I would have rather been wrong about this.

"She didn't tell you because Saxon had some kind of plan with her. But now she'll help us instead." Monsieur Dauphin answered before Avery had a chance.

"No!" Avery was shaking her head, insistent now, "There's no plan, Saxon doesn't even know about my eyes. Don't you need his permission to do anything to me? He'll be here any minute. He'll stop this!" She believed every word. My eyes glanced at Jack, who was frustrated and angry, but not surprised. He knew, he had known for awhile now, so either he had lied to her about telling the Saxons, or he was keeping secrets for her, from her own father. I couldn't begin to guess which was more likely, I really didn't know him at all anymore.

"Ah, but he's been told you've run away. He's off looking for you right now. And fortunately, he won't find you until you're already ours. He won't be happy about it, but it'll be done." Monsieur Dauphin pulled out a handkerchief and wiped away the brown contact from his finger.

"But you're not even sure who The One is! You don't know it'll work!" Avery argued, desperate for any way out of whatever was happening to her.

"And we're not going to know." He answered simply, handing the dirty handkerchief off to the nearest guard, "So it's time to take matters into our own hands."

"You don't need me; you have the baby!" Avery pleaded. I winced as she said it, and found my eyes squeezing shut as I heard the loud, hard, thwap, of Monsieur Dauphin's backhand against her face. When my eyes unclenched, she was on her knees, choking back tears, a hand, disbelieving, on her cheek.

Luc hurried forward, helping her up off the ground. Avery clung to him with one hand as she wiped away her tears with the other. She looked around at everyone, finally seeing how tired, how drained the rest of us must look. "Luc?" Came a ragged whisper.

"The Order attacked my mother on the way home from the ball last night. She'll pull through, and the baby boy is fine—" he explained, swallowing hard around the words.

"Oh, Luc…" She whispered back, genuine sympathy in her tone, even as her own life was being blown up around her.

Monsieur Dauphin had the guards holding Jack take him to a cell. "The tailor is waiting for you son. I got you a new suit for your wedding." Avery, still in Luc's arms balled, until more guards came forward and pulled her away, off to a cell of her own.


	10. Chapter 10 - Puzzles

**Chapter 10 – Puzzles **_(CoU 36-38)_

Elodie seemed to be in a million places at once. It was hours before she pulled me aside holding out a box for me. "_Take these to Avery. She's in the old servant's quarters downstairs."_ I blinked, and looked at the box questioningly.

"_They're contacts. Apparently, she's been complaining about being blind to whoever will listen, and insisted we get her new contacts so she can see."_ I raised an eyebrow, surprised that she was in any position to make demands. Elodie only shrugged at my expression, "_Listen, don't ask me. Just do as you're told, alright? I'm single-handedly trying to plan a wedding that determines the future of the entire Circle in under twelve hours, I do not have time for your questions!"_ And with that, she stormed off, dialing her phone as she went.

I headed down to the old servant's quarters. These ones were in disrepair and weren't used anymore, but were kept mostly for storage, and posterity, and the occasional impromptu dungeon, apparently. One hall had guards on each side of it, with a final guard walking back and forth patrolling a path between them. "_I'm looking for the girl."_ I told one of the hallway guards, and he pointed me towards the correct room.

I knocked, and when I didn't hear a reply opened the door and peeked my head in. Avery sat bolt upright the second the door opened. She was sitting on a wooden cot, with a large white dress hanging from a hook above her, still barefoot, hair a mess, and in her thin pajamas that were, well, they _clearly_ weren't protecting her from the chill of the room. She jumped up when she saw it was me "Stellan! Please, let me go! I'm not trying to hurt the Dauphins, I promise!"

I scowled at her, she must realize we weren't friends in all this, right? I held out the box and just said "Here."

She eagerly ripped through the packaging, and started to put the contacts in her eyes. When they were in, she blinked a few times, and then looked up to meet my gaze. I swallowed, hard. Her eyes were the same color as Luc's but, they were different somehow. They were a beautiful shade of violet that just seemed to suit her features in a way that the brown hadn't. No matter how many times I'd seen men with violet eyes they'd always looked _unnatural_ to me, but on her they just seemed, right, like I couldn't believe I hadn't _known_ her eyes shouldn't be brown from the moment I'd met her.

I hardened, thinking of all the times I _should_ have known about her eyes. "You should have told me. All those times I asked you what you were and you lied."

"You would have just turned me in even sooner." Avery argued, shivering and crossing her arms over her chest.

"But, if I'd known, if I hadn't been watching you last night, and I'd stayed with Madame…" I felt my hands fist at my sides, and Avery winced backwards, frightened.

"I'm so sorry about what happened to Madame Dauphin, but it is _not_ my fault. And it's not yours either." She continued, not giving me a chance to object. "Madame Dauphin _told_ you to follow me. I heard her remember? In fact, if I heard correctly, she seemed to be blackmailing you or something."

"That is none of your business." I muttered under my breath, turning towards the door to leave.

"Wait! Is Jack—"

I stopped at the door, leaning my hand against the door frame, but not turning back towards her. "He's in a cell, someone will deal with him later." She should _really_ stop thinking about Jack now. He'd sealed his own fate staying in her room last night. He had known better, _especially_ since he'd known who she was, he would have known that she was destined to get married off the second she was firmly in the Saxon's grip.

"How did you know?" She asked.

I turned to face her, "Does it matter?"

"Then why not tell me?"

I let out a long sigh, but I wasn't exactly eager to get back to Luc, I knew he needed me right now, but the heartbreak in his eyes from everything that had happened in the last day was just too much to take. "I saw you talking to the Saxons." I answered, "I noticed you looked alike, but since you were supposedly a Saxon yourself, I didn't think much of it. Then you mentioned the contact lenses, and I remembered how you were looking at Alistair Saxon, and the pieces just fell into place." I shrugged a bit.

Again, right as I was about to leave, I heard her say "Wait." This time followed by "Fitz knows something about the Mandate, and the tomb." I stopped. She was fucking with me, right? "That's why The Order took him. He left us clues, including a diary of Napoleon's that talks about everything. The tomb, The Mandate, The One. The Order wants to know who The One is or they're going to kill him."

I left my hand on the doorknob, but turned my head over my shoulder to meet her violet eyes. "You just said a lot of things that make no sense. The Order's ransoming Fitz? Are you talking about _the_ tomb?"

"Yes, we'll tell you everything. Let's just go talk to Jack." Avery insisted eagerly.

I dropped the doorknob, leaving the door open just a crack, and took a step back towards Avery. What was this? Some elaborate lie to get me to take her to Jack? "Why would Fitz know anything about the tomb and The One?"

"I have no idea, but he did. And he wanted us to find clues, he left us a note. With photos. Of Jack, you, and me…" I raised my eyebrows, a picture of _me_ was suspicious enough, but Fitz having a picture of _Avery_? "I knew Fitz, back home, long story…"

"And you expect me to believe this?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at her, "You've lied to me over and over."

I heard the guards walking and chatting in the hall behind me, and Avery lowered her voice to just above a whisper before she answered me. "I lied because you would have turned me in, to the Dauphins, which you did. I'm telling you the truth now."

I shook my head, this girl was too good of a liar, there was no other explanation. "I doubt Fitz would leave whatever this is for me. He- He always liked Jack better."

I saw a flash of pity cross her face, and in that moment, I hated her for it. "Apparently he trusted you with this too.

"You say Jack has this diary right now?" I pushed gently on the door, letting the slight crack close all the way.

"Unless they took it. Just come see, please? For Fitz. And if that's not enough, you'll want to see the rest of what we found. The stuff about the tomb might be interesting for the Dauphins." She paused, but when I didn't react, she just pushed past me towards the door. "We only have until noon to contact The Order, and it's not like I can escape."

I ran my hand through my hair, "I'll go get it from Jack then and tell you if I find anything." That seemed reasonable, it was probably a wild goose chase, but if there was a chance I could help Fitz, or a chance I could redeem myself with the Dauphin's by helping them find the tomb…

"No." She insisted, "The three of us should talk through it together, like Fitz wanted. We have to be missing something." When I didn't answer her, hand still knotted in my hair, she looked up at me with desperate determination, "You've already ruined my life by turning me in. You owe me this much."

Well, _fuck_. I pursed my lips, wanting to tell her that I'd only ruined her life to save my own, that I owed her nothing, that she should have just told everyone and gone off with the Saxons before Madame Dauphin could be attacked. But I didn't say any of that, I couldn't. "OK, but only for Fitz." I finally acquiesced. "It'll be hours until the wedding, but they'll be looking for me to work soon. I'll give you…" I glanced at my watch, "Ten minutes. Let's go."

I grabbed her by the arm, and dragged her with confidence up to the guard. "_Where's the Keeper?"_ he looked at Avery suspiciously, but knowing my position above him he just waved to one of the rooms further down the hall, and said nothing as I dragged Avery behind me into it.

Jack was sitting, still in his tuxedo, on the metal cot, with his jacket folded up next to him. When the door open, he jumped into the air, his eyes darting back and forth between Avery and me.

"The diary, give it." I demanded, holding my hand out to him. Jack stood for a second, stunned, before pulling it out of his jacket and handing it over to me. I flipped through the pages, it was old, and it described battles from Napoleon's era. Without reading it closely I couldn't be positive, but it did seem similar to the Napoleonic diaries the Dauphins had in their own collection, so I nodded my head and handed it back to Jack. "OK, I need to go make an excuse so no one bothers us. Don't try anything."

I went into the hall, and waved over the patrolling guard "_I've been ordered to do some interrogations. Since we can't hurt the girl before her big day, the hope is maybe seeing her boyfriend in pain might – motivate – her. Give me some space to work._" The guard nodded, apparently not at all surprised by the order. In fact, if Monsieur Dauphin had been in his right mind instead of overcome with rage and grief it was exactly the sort of order he absolutely _would_ have given.

When I came back in the room Avery was hiding behind Jack, her hands tucked behind her back. "I told the guard outside I was ordered to interrogate you. You may have to scream occasionally." I told Jack coldly.

Avery relaxed, and began squirming with her hands up the back of her shirt, wincing a little as she moved. I quirked an eyebrow, "I may have been misinformed about the purpose of this meeting. I'm not sure I'm into this kind of thing."

Jack glared at me, and Avery just rolled her eyes, her hand coming loose from her shirt with the diary in it. She shoved the book at my chest as she spoke. "Quit it, both of you. Like you said we only have ten minutes."

"OK, OK. Explain." I gestured at them to speak as I began to flip through the diary on my own.

Avery did most of the talking, Jack just chiming in with specific details, or historical facts. Apparently, Fitz had known Avery when she was a little girl, although at the time he'd gone by Mr. Emerson, and they'd stayed in touch over the years. When Jack and I had fought over her at prom Fitz had messaged him, urging him _not_ to give her over to the Saxon's, before going completely silent and not responding. Jack had checked Fitz's apartment in Paris, and then taken Avery with him to his apartment in Istanbul. There they'd seen signs of a struggle, and found the pictures and a note in his safe. The note had urged them to follow clues starting at the Hagia Sophia. There had been Order goons there that had chased them across Istanbul, but they'd managed to find a bracelet of Napoleon's that Fitz had left for them in the museum.

The bracelet had had some sort of clue, something about Notre Dame and its gargoyles, so they'd followed that to an exhibit Fitz had had a hand in at the Louvre. There in a hidden compartment had been this diary. Jack pointed to the part in the diary where it seemed as though Napoleon had found the tomb, and then re-hidden it, claiming that the treasure wasn't what the Circle thought, and they were wrong about The Union, and that he was concerned for The Circle if everything got out.

"And the ransom?" I asked, remembering what they'd said about Fitz.

"The Order was following us, somehow. They showed up at Fitz's apartment, then the Hagia Sophia, and then the Louvre." Avery explained, breathy from how quickly she was trying to explain as much as she possibly could, "At the Louvre they gave me a phone number, they said we had until noon to call and tell them who The One was, or they'd kill Mr. Emerson."

"And the voice mail." Jack prompted her, and Avery looked at him, nodding quickly before continuing.

"My mom, she called and said she was coming to get me, but she still hasn't gotten here. I called her voice mail, hoping there'd be something about flights or getting stuck somewhere to explain why she wasn't here yet." She looked terrified, why hadn't she told us her mother was missing? Or coming to Paris at all? "My mom knew Mr. Emerson- Fitz – too when he was our neighbor when I was little. And he left her a message. He knew that The Order were watching him, and he wanted her to follow the clues too, before The Circle could. And he said that Napoleon had definitely hidden the tomb again, and left clues to find it, and that he'd found something about The One."

I took a deep breath, leaning my head back against the wall, flipping idly through the diary pages. The things they said were there, but it was all just too much. "So, what you're saying is you've dragged me away from my duties for puzzle solving time?"

"It wasn't exactly our choice." Avery shot back.

I ignored her, and focused my attention on the diary. Jack had pointed me to the ripped-out page, and where Napoleon had been discussing the search for the tomb, so I started to read those bits closely. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to help Fitz, but if Napoleon _had_ found the tomb, and I could give Monsieur Dauphin _proof_ of that fact, I might escape without too much punishment yet.

"13!" Avery shouted out of nowhere. Jack and I both looked up at her, wondering if she'd finally cracked completely under the pressure of the last few days.

"Let me see your tattoo!" She insisted, yanking at Jack's sleeve. She examined the tattoo closely, her fingers tracing the design, before she stood quickly up, and turned to face me. "Take off your shirt!" I considered saying something vaguely sexual, but settled for just making a face, before pulling my T-shirt up over my head and tossing it onto the cot next to Jack. Avery grabbed my arms and turned me around, her fingertips tracing _my_ tattoo. I tried not to notice the little pricks of pain as she pushed against the scars there, tracing the circle of the sun as she spoke. "The tattoos represent the 12 families, right? Did the families make their own symbols, or did someone else do it?" As she spoke, she dropped her hand back down, and I turned back to face her.

"Aristotle assigned the symbols, just after Alexander died." I answered.

Avery was chewing her lip, deep in thought. "What?" Jack asked her, the hope in his voice making it very clear that he thought she _must_ be on to something.

"Napoleon's diary." She started, looking at Jack excitedly, "He didn't say _one of the twelve_, he said _superior_ to the twelve. In all the things where there's twelve- months, zodiacs, hours, all of it- they're all equal. And look! Look at your tattoos! All the symbols have twelve things, and then a thirteenth, something different that brings the twelve things together! Your compass has twelve points, but then it's got a circle! The Dauphin's symbol has twelve rays, all around _one_ sun. And the others, the other ones I saw were the same way, there's always a _thirteenth_ thing!"

Jack seemed to be somewhat disbelieving, but not completely dismissive. "So, you're saying _superior_ to the twelve means somebody who's not part of the twelve?" He asked, leaning his head against the wall, and rolling his sleeve back down into place.

"Twelve things, plus one more thing connecting them, it's on all the tattoos!" Avery was so excited now, so sure of herself.

"Twelve, plus one more…" I thought out loud, looking at the page she was referring to in Napoleon's dairy as I spoke. "The one, true ruler."

Avery sucked in a breath, looking at me. Jack stood up, starting to pace. "In all the lore about The Mandate I've never heard of The One being someone outside of The Circle. That can't be what he means, it wouldn't make any sense."

"It would mean '_they're wrong about The Mandate'_ is an understatement." Avery agreed, she took Jack's empty place on the cot, and pulled her legs into her chest as tightly as she could. "It's not impossible."

"It's not impossible." Jack agreed, "But The Mandate is about the twelve Diadochi, some random person wouldn't make sense." He was pacing, trying to find a way to fit what Avery was saying into his already perfectly thought out world view, and he was failing.

He wasn't wrong, everything had always revolved around the twelve families, Alexander's Diadochi. And then it hit me. I stood up suddenly, pushing out from the wall. "Unless it's not a random person. Like if the Diadochi's thirteenth was Alexander the Great himself!"

Avery dropped her feet to the floor with a thud, looking at me as though I'd fit the final piece into place.

"But he didn't have an heir. Alexander's bloodline died out immediately." Jack reminded us both.

"Are you sure?" Avery asked, refusing to give up on the possibility. "Maybe that's the missing piece, that's why nothing's fit together yet." She chewed on her lip, but kept speaking. "Mr. Emerson said in that message he'd found something about The One. Like he was maybe talking about a _person_?" Avery's eyes flicked to Jack, and I watched as their eyes met and his skin drained of color.

"And that he's been protecting him…" she almost whispered, she said the words like they were a prayer, like she could _will_ them to be true.

I snorted, loudly, "Not even you two could be that dumb." How naïve was this girl that she assumed that this boy she'd let spend the night in her room was _The One_ and she was destined to marry him, just because they had Fitz in common, just because she _wanted _it to be him?

Jack's face fell, reality hitting him first. "I remember that part of the message, he said he _brought in_ whoever it was. I didn't meet Fitz until I'd been with the Saxons for years."

"Yeah, of course." Avery nodded, her face flushing with embarrassment. At least she _realized_ she was being an idiot. "OK, dumb idea anyway. If that's even what he meant, which it might not be, he probably has him hidden, somewhere far from here."

Avery leaned back, closing her eyes and rubbing them with the heels of her hands. I turned my back to the two of them, leaning into the book again. I was reading over the final page now, the last scribbles Napoleon had left, seemingly on his deathbed.

"The new mandate line, repeat it for me again." Avery asked Jack behind me.

"The One, The True Ruler, The New Achilles," Jack replied in a simple monotone.

There was silence as we all continued to think. And then Avery spoke up again. "Take off your shoes real quick, and your socks."

I turned, expecting she must've been talking to Jack, and wondering why the odd request. But those violet eyes of her were focused squarely on me. I looked to Jack, and he was also looking at her with just as much confusion as I was feeling.

"If you're trying to get me naked, there are easier ways to do it." I responded, glancing knowingly at Jack, "And more appropriate times."

"Will you shut up and take your shoes off?" Avery prompted again, the seriousness in her tone leaving no room for debate.

I took a seat on the cot, and started undoing my shoelaces. It was like she'd completely forgotten that _she_ was the prisoner. When I slid off my socks, she motioned for me to lift my foot up, so I did. "Oh my God." She said, her finger pointing, shakily, at the puckered burn on my heel.

"What?" Jack asked, coming over, and looking with barely concealed disgust at my foot.

"Achilles, he had one weak spot, his heel, right there." She pointed, her finger steadier now. "When The Mandate says walk through fire, maybe it means _literally_. Maybe Alexander's heirs _really_ don't burn. Your scars, Stellan, they're not normal burns. You were in a fire, but the only _burn_ you have is on your heel. Exactly like a New Achilles. Like Napoleon said."

"I don't believe it for a second." Jack turned away from me, pacing the room.

I looked at my foot, Avery had dropped her finger, but I couldn't stop staring at the burn. "After the fire, the doctors called it a miracle I'd lived. My sister, too. They'd never seen anything like our scars."

"Your parents." Avery said, "If it's a bloodline thing, one of your parents would have it. One of them wouldn't have died."

"My mother died in the fire." I admitted quietly. "My father had died earlier. Car accident."

"You both seem to be forgetting the laws of reality!" Jack exclaimed, his pacing growing dizzying in the small cell. "How would people from a certain bloodline physically not burn!?"

"I have no idea." Avery admitted, looking at me, "Maybe we'll find an explanation in the tomb. If we get a chance to look for it. It seems like that's where Napoleon got _his _information."

"Fitz was the one who found me, after the fire." I breathed out quietly, barely able to register Avery and Jack's bickering. She was wrong, this was all wrong. There was no way. I wasn't a descendant of Alexander the Great, I wasn't anyone special. I definitely couldn't be _The One_. But the thought still itched at the back of my mind now that Avery had mentioned it, and I couldn't help but scratch it. "He brought me to the circle."

"If it's true, and Mr. Emerson knew, why wouldn't he have told you?" Avery asked.

I paused, thinking for a minute. I wasn't ready to accept it as true yet, but I couldn't dismiss this all outright. It was just too strange. And somehow, something about it felt _right_. Maybe I just wanted it to. Maybe it was just wishful thinking. Being surrounded by people in The Circle for so long, everyone around me always _mattering_, it was intoxicating to think, even for just a second that maybe _I _mattered, that maybe _I_ was the important one after all.

"Sounds like he was looking for more information first." I offered, nodding at Avery, "About whether the rest of it was true, maybe?" If Fitz had known Avery as a young child, if she'd been important enough to him to keep in touch for years, I can't imagine he would have told me, a mess of a twelve-year-old boy, to go off and marry his beloved neighbor.

Jack eyed me angrily. He'd been thinking it too; he'd put together that if I was _The One_ that meant that Avery and I were destined for _The Union_. But somehow me even hinting at it, drawing _her _attention to it was deeply offensive to him. But I certainly couldn't care about his delicate feelings right now, it's not like he'd ever cared about mine. And in case he'd forgotten, she was about to marry someone _else_ this afternoon anyways.

"Oh." Avery exhaled, putting it together herself. And then she was talking quickly again, desperate to not think about anything to do with weddings or marriage. "Napoleon mentioned The Union being wrong, it doesn't necessarily mean…"

I crossed my arms, and leaned back against the door. I looked from the diary, still open in my hand to the pair of them, back and forth, a frown etching its way onto my face. No, this couldn't be. This was some elaborate ruse to get her out of today, out of the _actual_ Union. It had to be.

"Forget it." Avery continued, "Let's assume for a second we're right and there's a conspiracy within a conspiracy going on here. That _The One_ is a thirteenth, is possibly even Stellan. I know it's crazy, but for argument's sake, for Mr. Emerson's sake, we have to think about it. What would it mean?"

Oh, they were laying it on thick, really trying to lead me there, make me think it was _my_ idea. I closed the book, and glared at them.

"It would mean Luc's not the one." Jack said, hopefully, looking at Avery.

"The Dauphins would have to let me go!" Avery continued, looking up at Jack as she spoke "And we could contact The Order- It would at least mean they'd have to call off the wedding. We could get out of here in time to tell The Order _something_."

"Of course, it would mean no wedding." I was spitting the words, standing up from where I'd been leaning. This was bullshit, I was pissed, and I'd been played, and fuck these two for trying this shit on me. Did they know how many times they'd almost gotten me killed already? Did they think I was _this_ gullible? _This_ disposable? "Of _course_, that's what it all comes back to."

Avery could hear the condescension in my tone, but she looked at me anyway, determined. "Well, it does—"

"How _incredibly convenient_" I sneered at her, "You even thought you'd get me on your side with this ridiculous _thirteenth_ theory." The nerve of her. How _dare_ she play with my life like this?

"What?" Avery seemed confused, looking back and forth between Jack and I.

I ignored her and took a seat back on the cot, sliding my socks back on and lacing up my shoes quickly. "That's enough." I spoke as I got them on, "I'm not stupid. How long have you two been planning this pathetic charade for when she inevitably got caught?"

Avery tried to protest but I talked over her, not wanting to hear another word from that lying, manipulative little mouth. "I can't believe I let you talk me into playing along for this long. I'm taking you back to your cell."

I put my T-shirt back on, and took her roughly by the arm, pulling her out the door. I heard Jack try to offer her some sort of defense behind me, but I just let the door slam as I left.


	11. Chapter 11 - Through Fire

**Chapter 11 – Through Fire **_(CoU 38-39)_

"Stellan! Stellan, please! I'm not lying! You have to believe me! Ow! You're hurting me! Let go!" She screamed and cried as I dragged her down the hall, back to her room, but I gritted my teeth together tightly and tuned her out.

I opened the door, and tossed her in, harshly, watching as she skidded to a stop, rubbing at the place on her arm where I'd been holding her. "Thank you, the struggling and crying was a good touch. In case anyone thought I was getting sucked into your schemes." I said to her from the doorway. I could hear the cruel, bitter tone my voice was taking on, but she deserved it, I didn't care how shit her day was going, trying to trick me into betraying the Dauphins like that was _unacceptable_. It was low, and dirty, and just so very wrong.

"ARGH!" Avery threw herself onto the cot like a child having a tantrum. "It's not a scheme!" She practically screamed, and then her voice got a little more solid, "_Yes_, I want to get out of this." She admitted, her voice hard, "But we're _not_ lying!"

I looked at her from my spot in her doorway with an angry frown. "Even if this thirteenth thing _were_ true – this whole conspiracy of… _us_. Do you think anyone would accept it?" She had to realize that even if I was the heir of Alexander somehow, we could never prove it, and even if we _could_ we certainly couldn't prove that _The One_ was an heir of Alexander, not when The Circle was so determined for it to be one of their own sons. No one would ever accept that sort of power shift, it just wasn't within the realm of acceptable things.

Avery sat, her back straight against the wall, her feet dangling over the edge of the cot. She was trying to look tough, but she just looked tiny and frail. "They'd have to accept it if we had proof. If you don't believe me, maybe I'll tell someone else."

"If Monsieur Dauphin hears about you telling anyone, he'll cut out your tongue so you can't do it again. He's not a nice man." I warned her, crossing my arms. She flinched, and I continued. "If you tried to _spread_ this story, the Dauphins would destroy your '_proof'_ immediately. Then they would kill Jack and me for knowing about it." I shook my head, hoping she understood just how untenable this entire situation was, even if she _did_ genuinely believe it. "You think you're smart, but you're completely naïve in the ways of this world. These people are playing for a lot more than you can imagine."

"Then I can run. At least let me run. Pretend I got away?" Avery suggested, hopeful.

"No!" My hand smacked hard against the door jamb where I was leaning and I saw her lurch at the sound. "Pay attention! You _can't_ run. If Monsieur Dauphin can't have you, do you think he'll let anyone else have you?" I wanted to point out that if I let her get away, I'd be terminated, but honestly she was so caught up in how a forced marriage would _ruin_ her life right now that I didn't think she had the capacity to understand how letting her get away would _end_ mine.

Avery swallowed, finally seeming to see just how much danger she'd be in if she ran.

"And it turns out, I don't want to see you get killed, _kuklachka_. So, don't do anything stupid." And I didn't. Everything with her seemed so genuine. Maybe it was just a harebrained idea out of desperation, maybe Jack and/or Fitz had planted it as an excuse to protect her, but whatever the case she _genuinely_ believed that she was the violet-eyed girl and I was The One, and I could save her from all the rest of this. A part of me wished I could. But I had myself to worry about, I had Anya to worry about, I couldn't afford to worry about her too. And it wouldn't be that bad, not really. Luc would be good to her.

"How old is your sister?" Avery's voice quaked as I turned to leave. I kept going, opening the door, not sure if I should answer her. "What's her name?"

"Anya. She's seven." I said softly, bracing myself against the door frame at the thoughts of my sister.

"What's she like?" There was a genuine interest in Avery's tone, a kindness, and I found myself turning around, closing the door, and with a deep breath fishing Anya's picture out of my wallet.

Avery took it, holding it delicately, smiling down at Anya's smiling face. "Why don't you leave and be nearer to her?"

I swallowed down the pain, and took the picture back, tucking it away carefully back into my wallet. "Even if I could get another job that would let me take care of her, you don't just _leave_ The Circle. It's not a job you can quit if you hadn't noticed." I saw her eyes focus on my neck, as though she could see through my clothes and my body straight to the sun tattoo. "Maybe I would have done things differently, if I had known what I was getting into. But I was a child, my parents were dead, it was _this_ and have Anya well taken care of, or have both of us go into the foster system in Russia, which wasn't an option." My fingers worked at a bit of loose wood on the door frame, and soon I was fidgeting with a small shard of wood in my hand, picking at the splinters, not looking up. "So, I do my best. So that I can try to move _nearer_ to her someday. But it means I can't make mistakes." I looked up and met her eyes, giving her a meaningful look. "Like letting someone beat me to an American girl I have very specific orders about."

Her face paled a little, and she had the decency to not quite meet my eyes. I cleared my throat, "You'd better put on the dress and get ready. They'll be unhappy if you delay the ceremony."

She looked back up again, as though she could see through me, "There's a way to see… at least about the burns. It won't be fun, but if you have a lighter—"

I froze for a second, understanding dawning on me. People didn't have to have their houses burn down in gas leak explosions to get burnt, she was right. I pulled out my lighter, and just looked at it in my hand for a long breath. "You know it's not true. It won't prove anything." I wasn't sure which one of us I was trying to convince. This hope swelling up in me, it hurt. I wasn't sure I'd be able to take it getting ripped away. I steadied myself, and flicked the lighter on. A flame danced from it, and I felt myself flinch. I _hated_ fire, and I hated this whole situation. My flinch released the flint and the flame flickered out. I swallowed hard, setting my face in a firm scowl, and flicked it on again. I watched the flame waver in the air for a brief instant before I pulled it to my forearm, letting the heat lick against my skin.

I winced, my teeth gritting, my eyes squeezing shut. _Fuck,_ _this hurt_. I had to be _sure_ though. I held it, and held it. Had it been an eternity yet? Or only a second? How was I supposed to know how much time it took to burn, or how much time it had even been?

"Stop! Enough!" Avery was next to me, batting my arm out of the lighter's path. I dropped the lighter to the ground and heard its metal clang against the hard floor. I pulled my arm across my body, holding it to myself tightly, as though I could squeeze the pain of it all away.

Avery reached out gently, taking my arm and pulling it away from my torso, examining the place where I'd held the lighter. I watched too, in awed silence. There was nothing. Not even a swatch of red. I could _feel_ the burn, deep beneath my skin, and it _felt_ red and puckered and angry, but it looked untouched, unblemished.

Avery seemed confused, grabbing for my other arm, but I shook my head. "It's this one, right there." I pointed a finger at the exact spot, "Hurts like hell."

Her fingers went to the back of her neck, playing with a wisp of her hair there, before coming back down, and carefully grazing her thumb across my arm. "Not even like the ones on your back." Her voice came out in a hoarse, shocked whisper.

"Those burns were much worse. I got them saving Anya. A burning beam fell on us, it took me a minute to get out from under it and—" I met her eyes, none of this made sense, none of this was possible. This was a dream, a weird, impossible dream.

"Think about it." Avery looked at me, hope in her eyes again, "If we were right, and you were The One, and we all got away before the Dauphins could catch us. And we have all those other clues to the tomb, we might be able to find the treasure ourselves. You wouldn't have to count on The Circle anymore, you could take Anya and go anywhere you wanted."

And in that moment, I wanted it all. Everything she was saying, everything she was offering. The power, the treasure, an escape with her, with Anya. She was offering me everything I'd ever wanted, everything I could ever hope for. Things I hadn't even _dared_ to want. Power I hadn't even let myself comprehend before this very moment. I didn't even need to be sure it was true, just the _thought_, just the _hope_ that it might be, just that seemed like enough to live on forever. I was drunk on hope and promise and possibility.

I would whisk her away, and we'd get married, and uncover the tomb. I'd be The One, I'd be invincible, wielding the _power of Zeus_. Untold wealth and treasure. And with her putting her faith in me, standing behind me with those violet eyes, I would rule over the people who ran the world.

"Please." Her voice pushed through the fog as her hands gripped around mine. "Just let me out of here so we can have more time to investigate. If you sneak me out before Monsieur Dauphin notices—"

I ripped my hands back, forcing myself back to reality. That wasn't real, that wasn't possible. I had _real_ responsibilities; I was in _real_ danger. There were people with power, and they weren't me, and they weren't forgiving. And as much as I wanted to do everything Avery asked, for myself and for Anya, and maybe just a little for the girl that had given me even a taste of that sort of hope, I couldn't. "I can't risk- No. I'm sorry, _kuklachka_, but no."

Avery closed her eyes, letting her hands fall limp at her sides. Her posture sunk with defeat, but she'd said all she could say, she'd done all she could do. "Then at least call The Order." She said after a breath.

"Do you even have the phone number?"

"I memorized it last night." She rubbed her eyes, exhausted and beaten. "Give me your phone."

I hesitated, holding the phone out in my hand but not quite letting go. "If I got caught talking to The Order—"

"Fitz is going to die otherwise!" Avery snapped, snatching the phone from my hand and adding the number, "Tell them we're still trying to find The One. They can't blackmail us unless they keep him alive, I hope."

She held my phone out again, and I took it back. "I'm sorry" I breathed, and turned to leave. She didn't know what she was asking. She couldn't.

* * *

I was shaking when I got back to my room. It was too much; this was all too much. It didn't seem real; it couldn't _be _real. I was _not_ the one. I didn't _have_ a destiny, not like that. Avery had lied, so many times, she'd been lying since I met her, why would I believe her about this? _How_ could I believe her about this? But I knew. Now that I knew her secret, her eyes, everything was so obvious. I'd always known when she was lying, deep down, it just hadn't made sense until I'd known _why_ she was lying. And just now, about all this. It hadn't felt like a lie. It had felt like I could trust her. Like I _should_ trust her. And I wanted to. I wanted to believe that all that power was mine for the taking, that I was heir to the whole fucking planet, that I didn't need to serve any more masters, that I didn't need to live in fear for my life, or for my sister, ever again.

I took several deep breaths and went to my bathroom. I splashed cold water on my face, again and again until my breathing felt normal. I found myself spacing out, staring at the spot on my forearm, the spot that _should _be burned. And I shook myself, turning the faucet off and pacing around the room. My tux had been pressed and hung back in my closet– most of the staff's would have been by now – ready for the wedding, I looked at it, but couldn't bring myself to put it on.

My watch said 11 am. God, was it really _only _11? It felt like this day had lasted an eternity, but I knew that was because I hadn't slept since yesterday. No, not even then. I hadn't slept, not really, since… since the plane ride from Minnesota. No wonder I was shaking. I eyed my bed, considering. But no, there wasn't time, not for that. If I laid down now, I might not wake up until the wedding, and there were things I needed to do before then.

I stared at my phone. Then unlocked it, and opened it to the number Avery had added. She'd added the number but given the contact no name. I quickly renamed it '_Girl from Istanbul_' to avoid any suspicion if my phone was found, and then I hit call. The gruff voice on the other end of the line was not amused by my call. I told him that I wasn't the boy he'd been chasing in Istanbul and Paris, just someone who knew him, and I told him that they needed an extension on their deadline. I tried to play dumb about everything, and it didn't really feel like playing. And eventually the man hung up.

I didn't know if it had worked. I didn't know if he believed me, or if it had been enough. For Fitz's sake I hoped it had been, but I couldn't dwell on it, I'd done what I could. I'd helped as much as I could manage. And now I had other duties.

I stepped into the shower, rinsing myself off as quickly as I could, trying not to let myself get too comfortable and drift off under the warm spray of water. When I was done, I dried off and got myself into my tux. It felt wrong to be in it again so soon. But it seemed like everything today felt wrong. Well, not everything. Avery's offer, what she'd said, that had felt right. _Too_ right. So right that it was definitely the _most_ wrong thing about today, I decided.

Adjusting my cuff links in the mirror, I took a deep breath, and headed to Luc's room. His favorite cousin, his mother, and his unborn baby brother were all in the hospital, his baby sister would never be born, and he was being forced to marry a girl who he could never love, against both of their wills today. I didn't get to be the sad one in that room, I had to have my shit together before I got there.

* * *

"It's just so awful!" Luc exclaimed. He'd insisted on speaking English, saying he should get used to it more, since his betrothed didn't know French. _'It's the least I can do!'_ he'd insisted, and I hadn't bothered to try to argue. "She'll hate me! She'll be my wife and she'll hate me forever! How could she forgive me!?"

"Luc, calm down." I reassured him, "This isn't your fault, she knows that."

"_You_, know that, _cherie._ But does she? How could she? She knows nothing of this world! Of our world! Can you imagine? To an ordinary sixteen-year-old girl, how crazy this must all seem!?"

I shook my head and placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. He wasn't wrong. I didn't tell him I'd spoken to her, since I couldn't tell him _what_ we'd spoken about. But, I knew that at this point she was firmly in denial, refusing to believe that any of this could even be happening. "She's Circle too." I pointed out, "Even if she didn't know it until a few days ago. She'll learn, she'll understand."

Luc's face froze in horror, as though he'd just had the most awful of realizations. And when I spoke, I realized he had. "_Merde. _The consummation. Oh no! No! Not- I can't- Oh God, Stellan. I'd be a monster!"

I winced, catching up quickly to where his mind had gone. This was a Circle wedding, the end of the ceremony, before the marriage was truly recognized as _official_ was a small group of family members witnessing the newlywed's _consummation_ of the marriage. Luc was going to have to sleep with Avery, in front of his father, Gérard, a member from at least one other family, and with a sinking feeling in my gut I realized – me. "Luc, you've always known you'd have to- We've talked about this before."

We had. It had come up a few times, usually deep into a 3rd or 4th bottle. Luc had always known his parents would arrange a marriage with a nice woman from one of the other families, someone's cousin probably, someone accomplished and respected. Luc had fantasized about it maybe being a closeted lesbian, and they could have a quiet arrangement together, go out '_swinging_' and bring back '_couples_', there'd be rumors, but as long as they popped out an heir or two over the course of their marriage no one would _really_ care. But that wasn't Avery, that wasn't the marriage he'd be getting.

"Want me to pop a few buttons like we'd talked about?" I suggested with a forced laugh, trying to lighten the mood. Once, a few drinks deeper than normal, Luc had admitted a concern for his ability to _perform_ under those conditions. Trying to get a gay man to sleep with a woman was hard enough, but having him do it while his parents, and likely _her parents_ watched – it had seemed a daunting task. I'd offered, playfully, mostly, to unbutton a few buttons of my tux, and make eyes at him over his future wife, _if it'd help_. And we'd laughed, and he'd blushed, and he'd hugged me and told me I was a good friend, and a terrible tease, and the hurt in his eyes had seemed, for a minute, further away.

But it didn't help this time, the air didn't lighten, and the tension still held Luc's face. "It will be _rape_." Luc whispered, barely able to say the words. "She won't- If it was anyone else, she'd have come to terms with it. It'd be awful, and we might both hate it, but it'd be our duty. We'd both _consent_, _cherie_."

My stomach twisted at his words. "She'll understand." I tried to force out the words, feeling them catch in my throat. "I know it doesn't seem like it but, she'll have to, eventually." Luc was pacing, picking at his tie repeatedly, and I didn't know how to calm him down. What could I possibly say to help ease these very valid concerns, these very reasonable pangs of guilt? "It may not seem like it, but think about it, Luc, she's lucky that it'll be you." I finally said, and I meant it.

Luc turned to me, his eyes brimming with tears. "How can you possibly say that, Stellan?"

"Because." I told him, crossing the room and putting a hand on each shoulder. "You will be an _amazing_ husband. Today will be awful, but I know you, every day after you will make her smile. You make everyone smile, even when it feels like there should be nothing to smile about, Lucien."

A small, hopeful look crossed his face, along with the slightest of blushes, and I continued. "And besides all that, you've been with your parents, looking at the options outside of the Dauphin's to marry." Luc winced at the reminder of his lost sister. "There are some real monsters in The Circle, Luc. If the Saxons had their say, who knows which of those men she'd be stuck with. But whoever they would be, do you really think they would care for her like you will?"

We spoke for awhile longer. And by the end we both felt a little better about the wedding, and about the marriage that would follow. We didn't discuss the consummation again, neither one of us was able to think of any justification or solution, or _anything_ to make that particular hurdle feel less predatory, like less of a violation. Luc would never forgive himself for what he'd have to do today, I knew that all the way to my bones, and it killed me. But maybe, given time, Avery could forgive him, maybe, given time, she could understand the way The Circle put everyone in unwinnable situations, the way it made monsters of the best of us. And, in spite of it all, in spite of his shitty upbringing and overly lavish lifestyle, Luc _was_ the best of us.


	12. Chapter 12 - The Wedding

**Chapter 12 – The Wedding **_(CoU 40-41)_

I was sent to Notre Dame with the second wave of security. There were hours until the wedding, but Monsieur Dauphin had very specific _concerns_ for the event's security. I wished I could have stayed behind with Luc, spent the extra time with him, been there as his friend, but that wasn't my job, my job was to be the Dauphin's Keeper, and that meant I had more important places to be.

The first wave of security had already done the work of clearing out tourists and volunteers, and hanging the _private event_ signs that tourists in Paris for limited stays were now gawking angrily at outside. The job of me and my team was to make sure the inside of the building was properly set up and secured. A few people who worked with Elodie were already there, on headsets, moving the railings that were meant to block the average person from getting too close to anything important, and putting up flower arrangements and tall candles in several locations around the altar. They mostly stayed out of our way as we got to work.

Monsieur Dauphin was terrified that Avery would try to escape. He was right to be scared of that, it was _definitely_ a thing she would do if she saw an opening. I tried to push thoughts of her, thoughts of this morning, from my head. They were the fantasies of a scared girl, and that was fine for her, but _I_ could not afford to let them distract me. I went through with my team, making sure exits and entrances were locked all around the building. By the time we were done the front door to Notre Dame was the only one unlocked.

Of course, while the doors in and out of the building all had locks that we could use, but those same locks didn't exist on the doors _inside_ of the structure. Interior doors leading to stairwells and up to the roof were all but impossible to fasten shut. My team and I staked out each and every path, ensuring that, even if it couldn't be locked, it couldn't _really_ be used as an escape. At least, not unless Avery was willing to jump off of the roof, and really, if she did, she wouldn't be getting far.

By the time we'd traced every path, Elodie had arrived and was working with her team to redo pretty much everything they'd done prior to her arrival. I wanted to speak to her, but it was obvious she was busy, so I left her alone. I checked my watch, the guests would start arriving in less than an hour, so I rounded up my team to make sure everyone knew their jobs and locations. I would be positioned by the exit, given that it was meant to be a choke point if things got out of hand, but there would be guards all around the building, just in case something went wrong, Monsieur Dauphin was _not_ taking chances with his family's future.

I stood by the entrance, watching the rain fall down on the street outside. A group of guards began moving towards me, surrounding and almost entirely blocking the view of a small girl in white. I made an excuse about checking the perimeter to one of the other guards with me, and began to walk away. I didn't want her to see me, I couldn't take it if she gave me those desperate '_save me' _eyes again. This was _her_ mess, not mine, and no matter what she might think there was nothing I could do to help her.

When she'd been shut into the confessional booth I returned to my post, and at Monsieur Dauphin's orders closed the front door. Monsieur Dauphin was standing at the altar next to Luc, talking to his son with a forced nonchalance. Luc was doing his best to keep it together, his face as stoic as Luc could ever _really_ be. Fortunately, everyone watching knew about the tragedy that had struck the Dauphin's the previous night, everyone knew about the loss of their violet eyed daughter, and the hospitalization of Madame Dauphin. If anyone saw the cracks in Luc's hardened exterior, they'd almost certainly assume it was due to that, nothing at all suspicious about his rushed nuptials.

The time had come for Avery and Luc to get married. The music shifted slightly, and a guard came hurrying over to the confessional booth, ready to get Avery and drag her, if necessary, down the aisle. As he opened the door, I heard a soft, "_Merde!" _and then some old wood scraping around, before he turned around, without Avery, and hurried back up to whisper in Monsieur Dauphin's ear.

I took a step away from my post, glancing into the confessional booth. There, in the back, was a tiny door, one we'd never have noticed, never have even thought to look for- and it seemed to lead up. Clearly the guard had told Monsieur as much, because his eyes were now scanning the balcony, his face angry. Monsieur Dauphin gave the guard a few whispered orders, and then stepped forward to address the crowd.

"Thank you all for coming this evening." Usually this would have been in French. If he was speaking English that must mean that this little speech was mostly for Avery's benefit. "As you all know, our family's tragedy is just the latest of our adversaries' plans to take down The Circle, family by family. I know some of you suspect, as I do, that The Order's information about us is too detailed to be coincidence." Where was he going with this?

"I am happy to report that we have caught the traitor who has been passing information to the enemy for months." The crowd of wedding goers reacted loudly to the news, some excited, others shocked. "Bring him!" Monsieur Dauphin's loud voice cut through the noise. And the guard he'd sent away returned, dragging beside him a man. Bound, handcuffed, with a dark hood covering his face. But from the size alone, I knew. Monsieur Dauphin ripped the hood off, revealing Jack Bishop to the crowd.

"This boy has been using his status as a Keeper to betray us!" Monsieur Dauphin announced to what was quickly becoming an angry mob. But his eyes weren't on the reactions of his guests, they were still transfixed on the balcony. Avery. This was all an elaborate trap to get her to turn herself in, to come marry Luc _willingly_. "And now, all of you will watch as his crimes are punished." The guard drew a large knife, one that would easily take Jack's head off.

"STOP!" I heard her voice shouting from the balcony. I saw as a blur of white approached the railing of the balcony and in a softer voice she simply said. "I'm here." She stood there, frozen, staring at Jack, as guards rushed up the few unblocked ways to collect her.

She shouldn't have done it. She should have just found a way to make an escape. She didn't seem to understand it yet, but Jack had been dead from the second he'd been caught in her room this morning, and he and I both knew it. Not every family was as quick to turn to termination as others, but there were some lines that seemed uncrossable to everyone in the Circle. If Avery had just been a distant cousin, if Jack had just been caught kissing her at a party or something– then maybe, _maybe_ the Saxon's would have spared his life – he'd have been hospitalized, but alive. But knowing that she was a _direct_ family member, knowing that she was the _daughter_ of Alistair Saxon, legitimate or not, no, Alistair would not have been able to forgive that particular act, even if she _hadn't_ been even more important due to her eye color.

Guards escorted Avery down the aisle, pulling her to Monsieur Dauphin and Luc. The audience seemed much less interested in _this_ aspect of the whole affair, as though having to force a girl down the aisle with armed guards was perfectly normal. Then again, looking at the families that Monsieur Dauphin had chosen to invite to this particular event, it seemed like maybe for them it was. The thought churned my stomach, but I stayed, focused, at my post. There was no stopping this now.

Avery was released at the front of the church, and I finally got a good look at her. A large veil covered her face, thick enough that no one would see her resemblance to the Saxon family, or more importantly, the color of her eyes. She wore an ivory gown, corseted tightly around her petite frame on the top, but flaring outwards from her waist. The bottom of the dress was already tinted a damp brown color from the rainy streets, and a pinprick of red blood was blooming on her side – she must have caught herself on something in her attempt to flee earlier.

After a few whispers Monsieur Dauphin released Jack, and pushed Avery forwards to Luc and the altar. But as Jack stumbled away a few members of the Emir family grabbed him, holding them with their own guards. "Wait!" Avery started to shout, but Monsieur Dauphin just leaned in and whispered to her again. He'd labeled Jack a traitor to The Circle, she had to realize that even if _he_ didn't kill him there was no way Jack was making it out of this room alive.

"I do apologize for the dramatics" Monsieur Dauphin said from the altar, "We'll now move on to the purpose of the day. The marriage of my son, Lucien." Avery was not mentioned, and I wondered briefly who exactly the audience today thought Luc was marrying.

Three priests stepped forwards, and Monsieur Dauphin took a step back, so that it was just the three holy men, Avery, and Luc in front of the altar. The central priest took some rope from the one to his left, and began to tie their hands together. Once the knot was in place, he turned back to the same priest who was now offering a small ceremonial dagger. He took it and made a small slice across Luc's palm, and then Avery's. "Rule by blood." I saw Avery's shoulder's flinch, but the worst of her reaction was no doubt hidden by the veil.

I watched as the ceremony continued, as the central priest used a candle to seal the knot, "Light in the dark." I watched as Luc reached out and held Avery's hand, giving her fingers a squeeze as the priest switched to French for a traditional wedding prayer.

_It should be me_. The thought felt foreign and wrong and I immediately recoiled at having thought it at all. But there it was. On some level I believed every word Avery had told me in her and Jack's cells. And if I believed that then, well, then it _should_ be me marrying her. _Me_ taking the power for my own. _Me_ stepping up to do what my family had always been meant to do, to _rule_. Avery West should be marrying _me_, not Luc.

The priest who hadn't been handling the ceremonial objects stepped forwards, taking out a small knife of his own. He sliced a ringlet out of Avery's hair, causing her to turn, confused. He held it out to the main priest, just as he finished his prayer.

"In the _gamos_ ceremony, the blood ritual and the offering of a lock of hair symbolize the purity and commitment to the marriage. And now, the marriage vows." The priest explained to the crowd.

Before the marriage vows could start, Avery turned, ripping the veil off her head with her free hand and tossing it aside. "Do you realize what the Dauphins are trying to do!? Look at my eyes!" She was shouting, and for a split second I was frozen, _everyone _was frozen. "I'm Alistair Saxon's daughter, and the Dauphins were going to marry me into their family without telling you." Her eyes, her brilliant, _violet_ eyes were showing now, for all of the crowd to see, and chaos took over.

Luc was just standing there, Monsieur Dauphin was lunging at Avery, murder in his eyes, the crowd was standing, moving to get closer – some trying to attack the Dauphins, others trying to get a better look at Avery, at her eyes. Monsieur Dauphin's guards circled up around him quickly, and I was off, sprinting through the crowd towards the altar. I had to keep Luc safe, no matter what else happened here, he had to be my top priority.

It was hard to track everyone in the crowd, so I just did everything I could to keep my eyes on Luc as I ran. The crowd was too tightly packed, everyone rushing into the aisles at once, and navigating was nearly impossible, but I pushed through, not caring who got in my way. All of a sudden Luc was next to Jack and Avery, a knife in his hand.

A few heads blocked my way, but I pushed closer, and then all of a sudden, my sight-lines cleared up. Luc and Jack were standing next to a shaking Avery, and in front of her rows of people were kneeling, hands to their foreheads, palms out. They were _bowing_ to her, treating her like a _queen_. I froze, unable to process what I was seeing. I'd known how the Dauphin's had been reacting to the idea of having a violet eyed girl, I'd known how important she would be to the family, to The Circle, but in that moment the full weight of The Mandate hit me.

It wasn't just about consolidating power; it wasn't just about posturing or some strange magic leading to Alexander's tomb. No, Avery was _hope_ personified. That feeling of possibility that she'd awakened in me, even for a split second, it wasn't just for me, it wasn't just about the power of _The One_. The entire Circle was holding all their hopes on her, they _wanted _her to save them, her to lead them. They would stand behind her, and they would stand behind whoever stood with her.

Avery was looking around, desperate for an escape, and some of the less demure families were shouting to have guards take her so that they could try Monsieur Dauphin's plans for themselves. Luc stepped between Avery and the crowd, directing their attention, giving her an opening to flee. And I hurried that direction, not to save Luc as I'd originally planned, but to get to Avery.

Avery and Jack were holding hands, hiding behind a pillar and waiting for an opening to head to a side exit, one I _knew_ would be locked. I stepped into their path. Avery looked on the verge of a breakdown, ready to scream in frustration at yet another roadblock, but Jack just held onto her, trying to pull her around and past me.

I reached out and caught Avery by the arm, pulling her behind another pillar with me, out of sight from most of the church. "You promise me you were telling the truth?" I asked, my voice barely above a murmur, but I was so close she'd be able to hear me, even above the chaos of the church. Jack was still trying to pull her away, but Avery yanked at his arm, bringing him to us, stopping him as she met my eyes.

"What—"

"And you'll stand behind me as the thirteenth. If we're right. Whatever we end up having to do?" I knew what I was asking, I wasn't sure if _she_ knew, but the gaping expression on Jack's face meant that he did. It didn't matter, I wasn't talking to him, I was talking to _her_. "She cries herself to sleep every night I'm not there." I was squeezing her arm too hard now, but she had to understand, she had to know how much I needed this, she couldn't be toying with me, couldn't be lying to me. "Every single night. And you can't say anything about me to The Order. Make something up. Promise me!"

"Yes. Yes!" Avery said, finally catching up to what was happening. She nodded her head as she spoke, and I could see in her eyes that she meant it. The promise was so that I'd help them, so that I'd let them escape, but she wasn't a bad person, she would do whatever she could to help me, to help Anya.

Guards started to head our direction, shouting orders at one another as they searched for her. "_Merde_. I'll stall them, second door on your left, it leads up, but all the exits on this level are locked. I'll find you later."

"How?" Avery started, but I cut her off.

"Hurt me. Hurry. Make it look convincing or they'll know I let you go." The guards were coming nearer now. Jack didn't hesitate, a right hook straight to my face. He'd been wanting to do that for a very long time. Possibly since Oliver Saxon had died, _definitely_ since he'd realized The Union might mean my marrying his girlfriend. "More convincing than one little punch." I spat at him.

But before Jack could wind up for another, Avery was holding a knife. Her grip was all wrong, and she was holding it just a little too far from her side, as though even while wielding it she was trying to distance herself from the act. My eyes widened, where had she even gotten a knife in all this? But honestly, I was impressed, surprised, I gave a tiny nod, and she squeezed her teeth together, poking the tip of the blade into my arm.

Right into muscle, "_Merde!_" I swore, feeling the tearing of flesh slow and painful. "More." I finally said, realizing she wasn't going to do it on her own. I looked up and met her eyes, and then I wrapped my hand around hers and plunged the knife in _hard_. I let out a strangled scream, and she did too, disgust and fear in her tone. But then they were running, Avery holding the bloody dagger, darting out through the door I'd directed them to.

Guards came at the noises, but I was leaning against the pillar, holding my bleeding arm. "_They went through one of the doors. Be careful, she's got a knife!"_ I called to the guards, looking as though I was trying to steady myself to help them. They tried several other doors first, and when they finally pushed on the correct door it stuck. Several of them threw their bodies against it, bending the old wood of the door dangerously, before whatever Avery and Jack had used dislodged itself, and the guards fell through after them. Hopefully they'd gotten far enough away, and hopefully Jack could figure out some way down safely from the roof.


	13. Chapter 13 - A Proposal

**AN: **Well, this chapter goes right up to the end of Conspiracy of Us. I'm planning to continue this into Map of Fates as well, but that'll be as a separate story, so keep an eye out for that I guess. I'll start that one as rated T as well, but sooner or later that one will _definitely_ be slipping to M - so if you're reading this in the future and you can't find the other story check your filters.

* * *

**Chapter 13 – A Proposal** (_CoU 42-43_)

Ignoring the guards, knowing I could do no more to help Avery escape, I turned back to the church, desperately searching for any sign of Luc. He was in a corner, pinned by an angry man from some other family. I sprinted, decking the man away from him and pushing Luc back further into the corner, shielding him with my body.

"_We're getting you out of here!_" I shouted at him, not bothering to look back for confirmation. I grabbed his arm, keeping him behind me and shielded him all the way to a locked side exit. I didn't have the keys anymore, I'd had to give them over to Monsieur Dauphin before the ceremony, part of his security measures, so I pushed Luc to the side. I kicked at the door. It took a few attempts, but eventually some of the wood near the lock shattered, and I was able to shove it the rest of the way open. "_Go!_" I ordered him. I saw another Dauphin guard nearby and grabbed him roughly. "_You're with us. Protect Lucien._" I ordered, and he nodded, sliding through the door after Luc.

The three of us came out beside the church. But, looking around, most of the chaos seemed focused in the front of the building, people swarming in and out of the main exit in a mess of bodies. "_Car, now!_" I barked at the guard I'd dragged along, and he rushed off without question towards the street. We had cars lined up a block or so away, he'd be back with one any second now. I watched around us, keeping Luc between me and the building.

"_Do you think- do you think she got away?_" Luc asked, his voice soft, scared. I tensed. I couldn't tell him what I'd done. But I couldn't lie to him either. I just shrugged, not turning around, not able to face him. "_I hope she got away…_" he added, even softer this time.

When we were safely in the car, driving far too quickly towards the Louvre I pulled out my phone and called Gérard. He answered on the first ring.

"_Do you have her?_" His voice came through roughly.

_"Lucien was under attack, some guards were closing on the girl, but I grabbed Lucien and got him out of the church. We're in a car headed towards the Louvre now."_

"_Merde. Fine. I'm with Monsieur Dauphin, we got him out safely as well. I've already sent more guards to Notre Dame to search the area. Once you get Luc to the Louvre you'll be joining them."_

"_Yes, Monsieur_." I agreed, _"How are we handling the Saxons with all of this."_

_"As far as we know they're still looking for the girl. Hopefully they won't hear about this until we've found her ourselves and gotten a second chance at this."_ I gulped, but agreed with him verbally. Were they really going to try to recapture Avery and do all of this again? I supposed, they didn't have much choice, if the Dauphin's lost Avery now the Saxons would find her, and they'd get all the power that came with that, all while holding a very understandable grudge against the Dauphin family for today's events.

* * *

By the time I got back to Notre Dame all the guests had been cleared out completely, and it was just crawling with security teams. Avery had last been seen ducking into the door I'd directed her towards, along with Jack, and that door had been held shut with one of the heels she'd been wearing. But that path lead to the roof, with no way out. It took a while, but eventually someone realized that they must have used some nearby scaffolding to get down, and from there our search expanded quickly out into the rest of Paris.

The bottom half of her dress was found in a trash can just outside the church, but that was the last trace of either one of them we could find. We searched well into the night, but by that point reports had come back that the Saxons had been informed of Monsieur Dauphin's plans, and the assumption was made that Jack must have returned Avery to her family, and that they were well and truly out of our reach.

As much as everyone assumed that though, I couldn't find any reports to prove it was true. Alistair and his children had returned from their search of Paris to the hotel they were staying at, but no one else suspicious had accompanied them. We'd had guards set up watching and reporting ever since we'd fed them the lie about Avery running off, but so far, those spies had seen no signs of Avery, or of Jack.

I knew what that must mean- they were still scared of what The Order would do to Fitz, they still felt like they had to follow his clues. Jack would want to go back to the Saxons, to use their resources to figure everything out, but Avery couldn't trust anyone right now, not after a day like this. She'd want to figure it out on her own, like Fitz had wanted us to. So, at least until she calmed down enough to listen to sense, they'd be hiding, somewhere, probably still in France, given she didn't have a passport. I didn't tell anyone this though. She'd gotten free and I wasn't being blamed for it, so I wasn't about to put her and Luc back at that altar.

Monsieur Dauphin was furious, but he couldn't find a way to hold me responsible. Which meant that he could punish me, he could beat me but he couldn't justify termination, not when I'd saved Luc. With Avery out of his grasp, and the Saxon family giving him radio silence, there was no question that he had just doomed his family for generations to be a lesser tier of The Circle. He took his anger out on me, well into the evening. But when it was all over I was alive, which was more than I'd dared to hope for for days.

* * *

When I finally made it to my bed my sleep was fitful, as it so often was. I couldn't stop thinking about the possibility that I might really be The One. I had gone back and forth between thinking it was insane and thinking it might be true a million times, but in the end, I'd decided that if Avery believed it, if she stood by her belief, that was good enough for me. I'd been so sure no one would support my claim, that no one would believe the little American girl who no one had ever known before, but then I'd seen her at the wedding. Seen all the men and women bowing down to her, raising their hands in her honor.

I'd known, of course, that The Circle had struggled more and more in recent years. That wealth and power meant less and less when technology was in everyone's hands, when _anyone_ could find and claim power for themselves with readily available tools and the right balance of luck and skill. I'd seen Madame and Monsieur Dauphin struggle to keep up with the latest and greatest, struggle to figure out how to stay the most relevant, the most powerful. But it had never really crossed my mind that they realized it too. That the whole of The Circle _knew_ that their iron grip on the fate of the world was slipping.

But seeing how they'd reacted to Avery- like she was their best and only hope, like she would lead them out of the darkness and into some glorious future, renewed and as powerful as ever- seeing that had made it clear. Everyone knew, no one said it, but they knew. And if all their hope was on her, then she was suddenly, unquestionably, the most powerful girl in all the world. Her opinion on the matter may very well be the only one of consequence.

And it was those thoughts that filtered their way into my more mundane nightmares. My dreams were full of visions of Avery, with a crown atop her head, and of fire. Always of fire.

* * *

Years ago, before Oliver's death- Oliver, Luc, Jack, and I would often get up to trouble any time the Dauphin and Saxon families would visit one another. Jack and I were of course _supposed_ to be there as protection, but in reality, it had always been more about four friends with too much money and freedom off causing mayhem on the streets of London or Paris. The one exception was that Jack and I _did_ still value our jobs, and we loved Oliver and Luc, protecting them had always mattered to us. So, in both Paris and London we had rendezvous points set, times and locations where we'd all known to meet up should the worst happen.

There was an initial point, one near the center of each city, that if we could safely get away and reconvene was to be used exactly one hour after separation. Obviously, after everything that had happened yesterday, there had been no way for Jack, Avery and I to meet up within an hour. But Jack and I always had a second point too, for the _really_ bad situations. If we couldn't get back to each other or safely reach out and get in touch, the next evening, 6 pm there was a location on the very edge of the city where no one would expect us.

Luckily, we'd never had to use those locations. There had never been a terrorist or Order attack during the visits, and so it had just never come up. I suspected by now Luc had even forgotten about the location, but Jack wouldn't have. So, I knew when I'd told Avery that I'd find them, that I would find them there, tonight, at 6 pm. Of course, that was assuming I could get away at 6 pm. Which, was not altogether surprisingly, more difficult than expected.

The chaos had not died down since the failed wedding. There were attempts to make peace with the other families, attempts to try to get any information on what had happened to Avery, where she might have gone. Security was at full force, since Monsieur Dauphin was terrified of some sort of counter assault, some attempted retribution by one of the slighted families. I finally managed to get away, claiming that I'd gotten a tip about someone being seen yesterday in a ripped-up wedding dress downtown. Gérard had tried to send a full security team with me to sweep the area, but I'd dismissed him, claiming it was a lead worth following up on, but not promising enough to risk the Dauphin family by taking any guards off duty.

And so, it was only fifteen minutes after six when I opened the door to the little falafel shop. I made my way up the stairs to a small balcony, and to the back of the shop, where I could easily see Jack and Avery sitting, morose, at a table picking at some food. I sat down in a third chair they'd left open, and grabbed some of the pita from a shared basket, dipping it into the plate of hummus Avery had barely touched. "Either you kept your promise to not turn me into The Order, or they're even more incompetent than I'd imagined."

I gave Avery a half smile as I lifted the food to my mouth, trying to ease the look of utter despair in her eyes. Jack put a hand possessively, protectively, on her knee, as she answered me. "We didn't turn you in." Jack squeezed her knee, and I could see her put her own hand on top of his. Something was wrong, _very _wrong.

"They killed him. He's dead, because we didn't turn you in." Jack's voice cut through me.

"What?" I asked, freezing in place, the triangle of pita halfway to my mouth.

Jack pushed his chair back from the table, ready to start a fight, but Avery grabbed his arm. "Don't. Stop." She urged him in a hushed voice.

"If we'd turned you in…" Jack was fuming now, I felt myself move my chair back just a little so I'd be able to defend myself, still trying to process the information. Fitz was dead? They'd told The Order they didn't know who The One was, because I'd made them promise me, and now he was… no, it couldn't be.

Avery squeezed Jack's arm, getting him to turn his attention back to her. "Will you check outside and make sure everything's OK? Please?" She suggested, pleading.

Jack turned, glaring at me with more passion than I'd seen from him in years, before storming out to do as she'd asked. She watched him go, and then she turned to me. She was wearing a pair of sunglasses, likely a sign she hadn't replaced her brown contacts yet, I vaguely noticed, my brain trying to process anything other than Jack's words.

"They killed Fitz." Avery finally spoke again, her fingernails picking at the chipped varnish on the table. "They have my mom. They'll kill her too, if we don't give them a name. They're sure it's someone in one of the twelve families, so they wouldn't even believe us if we told them it was you, but they said they have a way of knowing if we're lying. So, we can't just turn in someone random. I don't know what that means, and I don't know if it's true, but I'm not willing to risk my mom's life."

Her mom? They'd taken her mother now as a new hostage. Oh, God. No, this- none of this made sense. "What are you going to do?" I asked, clearing my throat. I knew, deep down, that if it was me or her mother, she would turn me in in a heartbeat, and I couldn't even blame her if she did.

"_We_" Avery started, emphasizing the word, "Are going to use the clues Napoleon left to try to find the tomb. We'll either tell The Order about it, and let them have the treasure or whatever's there in exchange for my mom. Or, if there really is some kind of weapon, we'll use it against them. If Jack doesn't find them and kill them all first."

I looked at her, narrowing my eyes appraisingly. "And you think it's going to work to use – what did you say you had, that diary and a bracelet? To track down the tomb The Circle has been trying to find for centuries?" There were three of us, and unless we were using the Saxons, we had no real resources to speak of, to say the task was daunting was truly an understatement of epic proportions.

"Do you have a better idea?" She asked, pushing back from the table.

I didn't know how exactly to approach this. It seemed so obvious, and I'm sure Jack had thought exactly the same, but Avery seemed willfully oblivious to this particular plan of action. The Mandate had been studied for centuries, and the translation of _Union_ was pretty clearly marriage. I didn't know how getting married would lead us to the tomb, but I knew that generations of very rich and powerful people were pretty sure it would.

"For starters, I didn't let you get away purely out of the goodness of my heart." I started, watching her reactions carefully.

She folded her arms, but nodded, seemingly having expected as much, "What do you want?"

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table and looking at her, really looking at her. "I'm not sure you're entirely grasping the situation with the tomb. There's more to it than The Order, and their… There are things at stake for you, other than saving hostages. The Circle is in decline."

"I doubt that." She leaned in towards me, "They're the richest, most—"

I raised up a hand to stop her. She needed to see what I had seen yesterday. "You might not see it from the outside, but haven't you wondered how they can maintain the kind of power they had centuries ago in modern times? The answer is, they can't." She still looked disbelieving, but I pushed through, "It's been showing more and more the past few decades. The world is changing faster than ever, and they're not keeping up with it like they once were. It's scaring people. Soon they'll be nothing more than useless rich people whose ancestors were the kings of the world."

Avery swallowed, trying to process, so I continued. "Did you see all those people bowing to you at the church? Yes, they want wealth, yes they want whatever magical power they hope to find in that tomb." I leaned forward further, until I could feel her breath on my face, "But they want _more_ than that. The stress of the past decades has caused infighting like they haven't seen since the early days. They need something – _someone_ – to rally behind. You represent this thing they've wanted for so long. Don't you see? As much as whatever's in the tomb, _you're_ their treasure." I smiled at her.

Jack's boots started clomping up the stairs, and Avery flinched backwards in her chair, pulling herself further away from me. I leaned back a bit myself, casually, still meeting Avery's gaze and ignoring Jack. "If you want to find the tomb, you're making it harder than it needs to be."

Jack took his seat, but I didn't bother looking his direction, I kept my focus exclusively on Avery. "Think about it. They all want to claim you as their queen. The Dauphins have demonstrated that at least some of them are no longer waiting for confirmation of The One's identity. If anyone else finds you they could snatch you and marry you off before you knew what was happening. Maybe knock you up for good measure so you wouldn't be able to get out of it." I dropped my eyes for the last sentence, fidgeting with one of the napkins on the table instead of watching her reaction to that particular possibility.

"They wouldn't!" Avery started, and looking up I saw that both Jack and Avery looked sick and shocked at the very idea.

"They would. Even before they actually find the tomb, whoever fulfills The Union will gain a huge amount of power. Power that people can – and do – kill for."

She swallowed hard, but I could tell she knew I was right. "So?" She wanted to know if I had a plan, or if I was just trying to terrify her about an unavoidable future.

"So, we do the only thing that makes sense." I told her, leaning back all the way in my chair until it rocked slightly on unstable legs. I propped one ankle up on my opposite knee, trying to look relaxed about what I had to say next. "You want to find the tomb. You have a great deal of power. You said you'd stand by me as the thirteenth."

Avery and Jack both turned to face me head on, looking away from one another. I could see from where I sat now that Jack had put his hand back on her knee, but he was letting it drop now, his whole face going slack as he knew exactly what I was saying. Avery didn't though, or at least she didn't want to admit to herself that she did, "What are you saying?" She asked.

"I'm saying it's _us_, little doll. You might be the treasure, but _we're_ the answer." I gestured between the two of us, and could feel Jack tense. "I know Napoleon mentioned something being odd about The Union, but he doesn't say The Circle's interpretation is necessarily wrong. It could still mean you and me together are a veritable treasure map. And even if that's all made-up nonsense, it'd keep you safe from being taken by one of the others. And it'd give us a good deal of leverage over them, in case we needed it."

I raised an eyebrow, watching Avery, trying to see if she understood yet. She shook her head. "Stellan…" She did, but she wasn't ready to admit it. So then, I guess I'd spell it out for them.

I smiled, "That's right, _kuklachka_. Congratulations to us! It appears you and I are getting married."


End file.
